The Constitutional Court's new home was born of a remarkable and uniquely inclusive process - one that resulted in a public building like no other. This structure, South Africa's first major post-apartheid government building, was designed to embody the openness and transparency called for by the Constitution itself.

The Constitutional Court, which was established in 1994, spent its first few years in rented accommodation. An international architectural competition was held in 1997 for the design of the new building.

The brief was to create a building rooted in the South African landscape, physically and culturally, without overemphasising the symbols of any section of the South African population, or making a pastiche of them all. The building was to have a court chamber, public areas, a library, public reading space and rooms for 11 judges, researchers and administrative staff.

The competition - advertised in local and international newspapers, professional journals and on the Internet - drew an overwhelming response: 580 applications were reportedly received, which produced 185 formal entries (including 40 from foreign countries). Submissions, which were anonymous, poured in from 30 countries.

The final result, however, could not have been more gratifying. An international panel of judges - led by Charles Correa, the distinguished Indian architect - chose a South African entry.

The young architects responsible for the winning submission - which was based on the concept of "justice under a tree" - were Janina Masojada and Andrew Makin from Durban, and Paul Wygers from Johannesburg. A partnership between their firms, Urban Solutions and OMM Design Workshop, had come up with a design that was fragmented rather than monolithic and comprised a series of pavilions subtly linked by internal and perimeter pathways and public plazas.