In designing a new state capitol building for Juneau, Alaska, Yazdani Studio sought to reinvent the iconography of the traditional capitol building to create a state capitol for the 21st century. The design conspicuously lacks a dome, instead featuring a central, glass-sheathed gathering space with lawmakers' offices organized around its perimeter. The transparency of the building materials and the accessibility of lawmakers to those they represent literally and symbolically promote transparency of interaction between the government and the governed. The Senate and House chambers, suggestive of the great mountain and glacier peaks that surround the site, are crystalline forms clad in translucent glass that admit natural light during the day and glow at night as emblems of illuminated public discourse.
Striking similarities between the site plan and Alaska's geography inspired a zoning of the site into areas corresponding to six distinct regions of Alaska. The building volume, massing, and circulation, in addition to outdoor and indoor gardens dedicated to each of the regions, were also inspired by the state's topography. The central public space courses between the towering volumes of legislative chambers just as the Yukon River runs through Alaska's center, between the Brooks and Alaska mountain ranges. Designers further envisioned a connection between the capitol site and the waterfront to ccreate a "capitol within a park" featuring a diversity of space of public use, including lawns, plaza spaces, a floating section that rises and falls with the tides, and a tidal section that celebrates the tidal phenomenon through a series of water terraces, with walkways allowing overhead views of marine life and plants.
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