Meacham - Blog 10

One of Richard Meier’s newer structural designs is the Sandra Day O’Connor United States Courthouse in Phoenix, Arizona and was built in 2000. For this one Meier seems to have strayed a little ways away from his signature style, however, anyone who knows of his style can definitely still see it in this structure. Rather than going with an all white design like his other works, he decided to change it up to try and work with the environment of Phoenix. Because of the fact that Phoenix’s climate is dry and arid Meier thought it he could work with the elements to create a spectacular building in this desert of a place. So with that he decided to make the build look practically made out of all glass to allow the sun and heat to lower energy cost. However, this wasn’t the case. The building and its all glass design is now seen as a huge problem because some say the atrium get up to almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle of the day. Overall I would say the design is actually quite interesting because on the outside it looks like a big glass box and then on the inside its all glass and there is different elements paired with big open atrium that really wow anyone that walks inside.