Project Data:

Completion Date:     11/1/2021

Square Footage:      60800

Building Use:           Superior Courthouse

Project Description:

Tuolumne County’s Historic Courthouse, located in downtown Sonora, has served County residents for over a century. The Courthouse outlived its capacity to support Court operations several years ago and needed major updates. The County was faced with having to upgrade other justice facilities and developed a Master Plan for a Law & Justice Center (LJC) to collocate judicial and correctional services on an efficient and modern campus to better serve the community. The New Sonora Courthouse is now the centerpiece of this campus, surrounded by a new Jail and Juvenile Hall.

The first step in designing the building was to establish critical success factors. The County and the Judicial Council of California wanted to design a building that was going to be a steward to the site and community, a transparent structure, one that is sustainable and local, and one that is cohesive to the justice campus.

Integrated into the hilly terrain of the surrounding landscape, the new Courthouse provides breathtaking views of the Sonora hills. Designed to provide Access to Justice for the Tuolumne County community, the New Sonora Courthouse provides a safe and secure facility. Additionally, the courthouse serves as a gathering space for the public, effectively evoking the spirit of the Courthouse Square in downtown Sonora.

The new Sonora Courthouse consolidates the Tuolumne Courts present location in several buildings throughout central Sonora. The 60,800 square foot program provides for five Courtrooms, a Jury Assembly room, a meditation workshop, Central Holding area and Courtroom Holding areas and all the required staff support and utility rooms required to operate and maintain the building.

As a steward to the site and community, the Courthouse is a prominent focal point of the community. By respecting the site’s trees, rocks and grasses, the courthouse showcases the natural features of the site. Additionally, the breathtaking transparency of the building lets light into the interior spaces, allowing for ample views of the site and beyond, with the valley and hills to the south and east. Users of the courthouse recognize the importance of managing their resources, striving to minimize energy use and waste, keeping resources local.

On the exterior, the site is on a steep slope, with a flat “saddle” running along the east edge of the site. This created challenges for accessibility and parking arrangements, but the county explored over 40 different concepts for the site and for parking, to improve accessibility. Locating the building along the south edge of the site, allowed for key advantages, including comfortable public and staff parking and pedestrian circulation, improved vertical circulation throughout the courthouse, and efficient passive solar design that reduces cooling costs.

Framework for Design Excellence

At the outset, the Design Team was challenged with balancing program and site constraints with a limited budget. A foundational approach to providing abundance with limited resources began with siting the building to leverage passive solar benefits. The building is situated east/west and takes full advantage of daylight: the major corridor serving the Courtrooms faces north with a two-story glass curtain wall. Further, the building has an efficiency ratio of 81% because the lowest level, integrated into a hillside, maximizes the building’s volume to surface area ratio. This results in less exterior skin and reduced thermal loss/gain exposure, which reduces operational costs. Materials were selected based on their long-term performance. As an example, interior public circulation space received terrazzo flooring due to the durability of the product and its low maintenance cost.

A major design challenge was the site’s proximity to Highway 108 and the noise generated from passing cars. The Design Team had to creatively solve for noise levels that could impact the wellness of visitors and staff alike. This played a significant role in how the interior spaces were laid out, specifically the Courtrooms themselves. Reducing noise impact on the building was accomplished by situating the Courtrooms furthest from the highway. Interior sound barriers were also installed and play a major role in mitigating, if not reducing, outside noise.

The project also achieved the light pollution credit in LEED, which is an important aspect. Sonora is not a big town, therefore reducing light pollution benefits the community and preserves the beauty of the nighttime sky. When approaching the building, visitors will find unique design features just outside the front door including marble slabs surrounding the exterior of the building to promote the historical and regional natural resource of the community.

Designing for Integration
The New Sonora Courthouse, as the centerpiece of Tuolumne County’s LJC, is part of a bigger vision to centralize the County’s delivery of justice services to its citizens. The New Courthouse’s role on the campus–and in the community–reinforces the rule of law in our society and the building is the expression that all citizens have equal access to justice under the law. As jurors make their way to the courtroom, natural light flows into the hallways on the second floor. Views of the surrounding Sonora Hills landscape, stretching as far as Yosemite National Park on a clear day, can be seen in the distance.

Designing for Equitable Communities
Providing access to justice for all who seek it is the Courthouse’s main mission; expressing this purpose was the main design objective. The design team wanted to create a building that would be accessible to all members of the community, regardless of ability. The main entry to the courthouse is a stone-clad, two-story lobby with clerestory windows on each side. This design element expresses the importance of the building upon entry and creates a sense of literal transparency in the judicial process. The wide and naturally lit corridors provide pre-function space for litigants to convene and discuss their cases before entering the courtrooms. This allows for people of all abilities to easily move around the building and gather in a welcoming space.

Additionally, a public transportation facility is located to the northeast of the courthouse, providing citizens with choices on how to get to the LJC: bus, bicycle, carpool, or by foot. This design element makes it easy for people to get to the courtroom without a car, which can be especially helpful for people with disabilities or limited financial resources. While the building is both functional and aesthetically pleasing, it is an asset to the Tuolumne County community.

Designing for Water
Water conservation was (and is) a major focus of the County; it is a precious resource. Design imperatives were established to minimize the use of both domestic and irrigation water. The building has been designed with low flow fixtures and is calculated at a 41% reduction of water use. The landscape is drought tolerant and is not water dependent: total landscape water usage was reduced by 55% below baseline.

Designing for Energy
The overall building systems were designed with energy efficient equipment and fixtures. Total energy savings are a 21% below Title 24 baseline requirements.

Designing for Wellness
To promote the health and well-being of the building’s users, the design was developed to allow as much light into the building as feasible. Light makes its way into the building through the corridors, offices, main lobby, and the jury assembly room, while providing views to the exterior. The jury assembly room was situated on the east side of the building so that it would be flooded with morning light when citizens gather for jury duty. Also, Solatubes were integrated into the lighting system behind the Judges’ Benches to bring daylight into the Courtrooms. The natural light that enters each Courtroom from these Solatubes animates the dimensional marble behind the benches and establishes an important connection to the outside environment, one that is not typically found in courtrooms. In addition, the HVAC system is a Variant Refrigerant Flow, multi-zoned system that gives occupants a good comfort level while also providing double-filtered fresh air from outside into the building.

Designing for Resources
Materials for the project were selected to meet the requirements of LEED for locally sourced materials, low emitting Volatile Organic Compounds, and Forest Stewardship Council certified wood products. Due to the project’s remote location (Sonora is essentially a remote town) to nearby waste management sites, the project was only able to achieve 55% of waste diversion. Of particular note, locally quarried dimensional marble from the Blue Mountain Minerals Quarry was used as the material behind the judicial benches in each Courtroom. The Blue Mountain Minerals quarry, located in Columbia (just 5 miles from Sonora), provided marble for many important civic buildings constructed in the US, including the Washington Monument! While the marble currently being quarried is different in color and appearance than the typical white marble the quarry has historically produced, it was important to connect the “heart” of the judicial process–the judicial bench–using the symbolism of Blue Mountain Minerals marble.

Designing for Change
The new Sonora Courthouse emphasizes the importance of delivering justice to its community members. Courthouses have very project specific programs and operational requirements, making them a one-of-a-kind building. Regardless, the New Sonora Courthouse was designed with open, flexible spaces to accommodate changes and new programs with minor disruption. Located on a hill, surrounded by extensive defensible space and widely accessible to the community, the New Sonora Courthouse can effectively serve as a facility where citizens can assemble in times of disaster and emergency, thus making it an essential facility.


Designing for Discovery
Transparency in the judicial process was an essential design element, and the clear windows surrounding each part of the courthouse allows for an elevated level of discovery for users. The main entry is a stone clad two-story lobby, which has clerestory windows on each side to express the importance of the building upon entry.
Additionally, the courthouse is designed in a way that is easy for users to navigate, which adds a level of easy access to the building. Users can easily make their way to the clerk windows on the first floor and the courtrooms on the second floor. The building is complete with wide, naturally lit corridors to provide pre-function space for litigants to convene and discuss their cases before entering the courtrooms.

Firm Name:              Lionakis

Completion Date:     11/1/2021

Square Footage:      60800

Building Use:           Superior Courthouse

Location:                 Sonora, CA

Design Architect:

Associate Architect or Firm:

Landscape Architect:
Landscape Architect – KLA Landscape Architecture

Owner / Developer:
Judicial Council of California

Engineer:
Structural Engineer – Lionakis
Civil Engineer – Associated Engineering Group
Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing Engineer – ARUP

General Contractor:
Turner Construction

Consultant:
Interior Designer – Lionakis
Audio/Visual & Telecom – Shen, Milsom, Wilke
Security - AVS

Photographer:
Chip Allen Architectural Images