Gensler+QKA will develop a district-wide facilities master plan for SCJCD to be implemented on all five campuses in Sonoma County, which includes the Santa Rosa Junior College Campus and Southwest Center in Santa Rosa, Petaluma Campus in Petaluma, Shone Farm in Forestville and the Public Safety Training Center in Windsor. The project will be funded as part of the $410 million Measure H bond passed by voters in 2014.

“We are excited to kick off our 2030 Plan for Measure H, which includes a major overhaul of campus facilities in order to support our future students’ learning needs as well as the future employee needs of Sonoma County,” said Dr. Frank Chong, Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) superintendent and president, in a statement. “Gensler+QKA is a remarkable combination of a locally immersed, education-focused firm and a multi-industry firm that pulls from its worldwide experience. They are working closely with architect and planning professional Leigh Sata, our director of capital projects, who has an extensive background working on California college bond projects.”

Approximately 50 percent of Sonoma County high school graduates rely on SRJC for local affordable higher education, according to the SCJCD. With Measure H funding, the district will seek to improve students’ educational experiences and alleviate overcrowding through a variety of facilities renovations and seismic retrofitting. This will specifically include modernizing classrooms, laboratories and other teaching spaces dedicated to fast-growing job sectors such as math and science. The future campuses and classrooms will undergo significant technology upgrades as well, and will soon house expanded and new career technical education programs. Funding will also support updating teaching equipment and tools as well as seismic retrofitting.

“We look forward to working with a talented and experienced team of professionals from Gensler and QKA,” Sata said in a statement. “Using the district’s strategic and educational plans to guide our facilities planning efforts, it’s going to be a true team effort.”

“We are steadfast in leading SCJCD’s 2030 Plan into a customized transformative experience and modern upgrades for each campus,” said Karen Kuklin, the project’s lead director and a San Francisco studio director at Gensler, in a statement.

Gensler+QKA currently is conducting a full condition and needs assessment of buildings and building systems, with a particular focus on energy efficiency, health and comfort, water and wastewater systems and management, and site and habitat needs. The project’s second phase will include an analysis of demographic and education trends within the county with future needs for academic programs informing the facilities master plan. The eventual master plan will include architectural and landscape blueprints, technology systems design and the creation of a building program for each campus.

“Having worked with Santa Rosa Junior College before, and considering our immersion in shaping Sonoma County’s high-profile educational landscape, we feel a close connection to this important and renowned institution,” said Steve Kwok, a principal at QKA and the project’s lead architect, in a statement. “We have a clear vision for how the master plan and campus design process should unfold.”
 

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An independent college-preparatory school for students from pre-K through 12th grade, the Dwight-Englewood School maintains an enrollment of approximately 900 students. To offer these students top quality STEM-based education, the Hajjar STEM Center will house eight new labs and seven classrooms for physics, biology, chemistry, robotics, and mathematics. The approximately 27,000 square foot building will also be home to the STEM faculty, a student greenhouse and a flexible school gathering space/robotics workspace.

“The growing global focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has created an urgent need to prepare our children, our future leaders, to become innovators in these STEM fields and to learn the way of thinking that engaged study with STEM accomplish,” Head of School Dr. Rodney V. De Jarnett said in an address at the groundbreaking. “Our School’s belief that we must educate our children to ‘meet the challenges of a changing world and make it better’ remains the driving force behind this vision.”

The facility was designed by international architecture firm Gensler, which also completed projects such as St. Phillip’s Academy in Newark, N.J. and the D’Angelo Center at St. John’s University in Queens, N.Y. However, the design process was highly collaborative, involving Gensler architects and numerous members of the Dwight-Englewood School community.

According to an article on the project by Gensler education practice area leader Mark Thaler, the team met with educators to discuss their curricula and to understand how their facilities supported academic approaches, then designed the building with an emphasis on how specific areas would interact with each other. De Jarnett and a group of key stakeholders also visited more than a dozen STEM facilities throughout the region to glean design inspiration.

International construction firm Gilbane Building Company was selected to serve as the project’s construction manager, and expects to completion the new facility by the fall of 2015.

“We’re thrilled to create this unique, innovative learning environment for students that will restructure the school’s math and science curriculum,” said Ed Stevenson, Gilbane’s senior project executive, in a release. “We’ll work to ensure the STEM Building is a great source of pride for the Dwight-Englewood community for years to come.”

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