"JMA is among the best general contractors we’ve worked with. Their service is personalized, of the highest quality, and they keep our clients happy." — Richard Beard, BAR Architects, San Francisco

Sonoma Academy, Santa Rosa

Site access on a road that didn’t exist was the first of many challenges we conquered with creativity & enthusiasm.

Completed in January of 2009, this high school campus consists of a main classroom building (with 17 classrooms/labs), library and adjacent gallery, a full-size gymnasium, student lounge, soccer/lacrosse playing fields, outdoor amphitheater, visual arts center, technology/digital arts center, black box theater, administrative offices and conference room and central plaza. The athletic fields were completed a good month before school started so the teams could use them for practice.

Using JMA ingenuity and a "can do" approach, we partnered with the City of Santa Rosa to cross city property (future Farmers Lane extension) in order to create temporary access until that road can be built.

The design by BAR Architects of San Francisco, reflects the county’s agrarian character and incorporates primarily two-story classroom buildings and a library around the central pedestrian plazas and open spaces. The largest building contains the gymnasium and administrative offices, while the Fitzsimmons Theater provides for black box style theater functions. To minimize the apparent size of the buildings from off-site views, the larger buildings were "benched" into the hillside with the overall placement of buildings following the natural terrain.

Natural day-lighting and cross-ventilation through operable windows are included in most classrooms, significantly reducing the energy used to condition and operate the school. Sonoma County’s first commercial project to undergo the rigors of the Santa Rosa Area Stormwater Program, the pre-existing wetland is integrated into the master plan for the campus. Using permeable paving surfaces where possible, the on-site rainwater retention ponds capture and re-discharge rainwater.

Architect: BAR Architects, San Francisco

Photography copyright Tim Maloney, Technical Imagery Studios