The courthouse will take the form of a faceted white cube. (Courtesy Office of Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard)

Last month AN reported that SOM had won the commission to design the new $400 million federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. Today, designs for the new facility were unveiled (via our friends at LA Downtown News and Curbed LA), showing a cube-shaped structure with a porous white surface. So far only two renderings have hit the web, but SOM has promised to share more with us soon.

The shimmering white facade. (Courtesy Office of Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard)

Located at 107 S. Broadway, the project will contain 550,000 square feet (scaled down from an original 600,000). Completion is planned for 2016. Other finalists for the job included Yazdani Studio and Gruen Associates with Hensel Phelps; Brooks + Scarpa and HMC Architects with McCarthy; and NBBJ with Mortensen.

The GSA began taking solicitations for the project back in January. SOM recently opened a new LA office—currently working on a new medical education building at UCLA, the San Joaquin student housing complex at UCSB, and the new superior courthouse in San Diego—so things seem to be starting out pretty well for them in Tinseltown. SOM’s LA office will work with their San Francisco office on the courthouse project.

Site of the new courthouse. (Courtesy Bing Maps)