Originally designed in 1974, the Stanislaus County Administration Center is still owned and operated by Stanislaus County. The facility is now headquarters to the Stanislaus County Office of Education.
Nacht & Lewis
Originally designed in 1973, the Radiation Oncology Building for Sutter Memorial Hospital has been relocated to another facility in downtown Sacramento. This mid century modern building features smooth lines and liner shape.
Stanislaus County Community Medical Center offers an array of programs and services designed to protect the health and safety of the community. Our firm designed this facility for Stanislaus County in 1972.
The Sierra Army Depot is in the highest desert plain east of the Sierra Nevada mountains at an elevation of 4,200 feet. Along with the medical center, ammunition storage and ammunition disposal warehouses are also located at this site. Nacht & Lewis designed the medical facility in 1971. Due to cutbacks, most of the facilities at the Sierra Army Depot were shut down in 2001.
Constructed in 1970 for Pacific Telephone Company, this structure currently serves as the PG&E Customer Service Center for the City of Merced.
One of Nacht & Lewis’ well known educational projects is Cosumnes River College (CRC). The college sits on 180 acres in South Sacramento. In 1969, construction proceeded on a library building, science building, automotive and technology complex, women’s physical education building, and swimming pool. By fall of 1970, the college opened it’s doors to the South Sacramento and Elk Grove community. Through the following years, the firm designed several other projects at CRC including the food service building (1971), additional seating to the original stadium (1971), and the student center (1972).
Nacht & Lewis returned to the Cosumnes River College campus in 2005 to design the Learning Resource Center.
Cosumnes River College continues to serve the communities of South Sacramento and Elk Grove which now holds a student population of over 14,000.
Designed to eliminate water discharge into the Sacramento River and provide greater energy efficiency, the Central Plant at 6th and Q Streets in Sacramento provides chilled water for cooling, steam for heating and compressed air for controls to 23 existing State-owned office buildings in the downtown Capitol area. The complete project included a new facility, demolition of the existing plant built in 1968 and a new thermal energy storage.
At the time of its completion, the new facility was the most energy efficient central plant west of the Mississippi River. In addition, the design-build team’s solution provided the State with an all new campus with room for expansion, a LEED Platinum certification versus the required LEED Silver and no disruption to the existing plant’s operations during construction.
Having outgrown their location in downtown Sacramento, the Sheriff’s Department relocated their 911 operations to the Sheriff’s existing South Area Station House in Elk Grove. In the early stages of the project, Nacht & Lewis worked closely with the County and Sheriff’s Department on a two-part feasibility study. The study determined the facility’s suitability, identified its deficiencies and the improvements necessary to meet essential services requirements and transform the facility into a functional, state-of-the-art 911 communications center.
After determining that the facility was suitable for the Sheriff’s Department’s needs, over 70 percent of the building was gutted to accommodate the new 911 operations. The new operations floors, equipped with 35 call taking and dispatch workstations, are designed for controllability of lighting conditions and proper room acoustics. The equipment room provides rack space for the Sheriff’s current radio and call taking systems and expansion space for future growth. The electrical and mechanical systems were overhauled to provide redundancy. The building’s security was upgraded to increase the level of ballistic and blast resistance while maintaining the architectural character of the building.
The North Natomas Public Library is jointly used by the Natomas Unified School District and Los Rios Community College District. A part of the Natomas Educational Complex, the facility is located on a 240 acre Regional Park site that incorporates Regional Light Rail Transit, Inderkum High School and the American River College Natomas Center. The building’s plaza identifies the entry to the Educational Complex. The Library includes a gallery entrance to house community events and display projects for school and community groups. The reading room is defined by a large vaulted ceiling that allows natural daylight into the space. The facility includes shared computer labs, distance learning center, study rooms and interior and exterior meeting areas.
As a public library in a community which is aggressively adopting sustainable building practices, LEED Gold certification was achieved by incorporating many high performance features. Water and energy use reduction, regional and recycled materials, extensive construction waste management plan were the main highlight of sustainable practices adopted. Key among the sustainable features is the abundant use of controlled natural daylight through clerestory windows resulting from the “open-book” design of the main reading room.
The Giraffe Barn and Viewing Deck project was a response to the Zoo’s expanding giraffe program, which resulted in a new state-of-the-art giraffe housing and care facility and elevated viewing deck for Zoo visitors. The textures, material and details are rustic and refined with an aesthetic gesture to the color of the giraffes. The giraffe motif is reinforced by using giraffe profiles in the structural brackets at the viewing platform and on the shutters of the barn.
The design intent was to invite the Zoo visitor into the world of the giraffe by placing a viewing deck that is surrounded on three sides by the giraffe exhibit roaming area. The deck is raised and accessed by an elegant dual ramp, transitioning visitors into the expansive space and views into the giraffe’s taller world. Adults and children alike meet these incredible animals eye-to-eye, providing a hands-on and up-close experience that both raises awareness of giraffes and promotes future participation in giraffe conservation efforts.
This multi-phase project resulted in the addition of two courtrooms, chambers and holding areas into an existing 1980’s era courthouse. Phase I required the relocation of the Court Clerk suite to an adjacent building. Since the adjacent building was constructed in the 1930’s, creative solutions to fire life safety and access compliance were necessary.
With the Court Clerk successfully relocated, Phase II began. The space vacated by the clerks was originally shell space planned for a future court-set. However, the requirements for courtrooms and holding had changed since initial construction was completed. The original design intent could not be duplicated, primarily due new accessibility requirements. Because lifts were impractical, ramps and sloping floors were necessary, which pushed the judicial bench to one side of the room but the courts were adamant about a traditional, center bench design. The design team got creative with diagonal axis and tilted walls which served to re-center the courtrooms. 3-D visualization was used to communicate to the courts that this solution would provide the prominent access they desired without the appearance the courtrooms were rotated. The end result was a pair of dignified courtrooms with premium finishes and detailing which integrated them harmoniously into the existing courthouse.
This project was funded by the County of Solano, but managed by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC). Because the AOC needed to be assured the project was within before Phase I design was complete, the project transitioned to a Design-Assist delivery at 50% design development. This was the first project delivery of this kind for the AOC, and is considered a successful venture.
The new Enhanced Outpatient (EOP) building is a single story building accessed directly from D yard of the Los Angeles County (LAC) facility. The facility was programmed to provide mental health services for general population inmates. The footprint of the facility was designed to fit between existing structures on site. The floor plan was compartmentalized into three sections in order to take advantage of the economies of less restrictive construction types.
The building includes: classrooms, group rooms, recreational therapy rooms, interview rooms, interdisciplinary treatment conference rooms and administrative offices and support space.
Sonoma Valley Hospital, located in the heart of California’s wine country, provides emergency care to the City of Sonoma. At the onset of the project, the hospital was intent on building a new central plant to serve the hospital’s growing needs, but with the team’s prior experience with central plants and hospitals, it was determined that a new plant was not necessary. Instead, the Nacht & Lewis and Otto Construction team recommended an upgrade to the existing 30 year old boiler and chiller, allowing the hospital to build a new two-story, Emergency Department and cutting-edge operating suite, providing patient care and healing in a single space. In addition to the new building, the project included minor tenant improvements to the second floor of the existing west wing hospital building and enhancements of the hospital’s entrance and lobby. With the assistance of this design-build team, Sonoma Valley Hospital has begun their transition to become a healing hospital, providing emergency care while encouraging health and healing in the community.
As part of a retainer agreement with Colliers International, Nacht & Lewis continuously assists with ongoing building management services to CalPERS at their headquarters building in the heart of Downtown Sacramento. Shortly after the building opened in 2005, Nacht & Lewis began a wide variety of post occupancy work. Technical assistance with general maintenance concerns, functionality issues and space reconfigurations are all elements of the work done for the East and West building locations. Through the years, Nacht & Lewis has developed standards for future office reconfigurations and assisted in selecting a pool of qualified on-call general contractors.
Nacht & Lewis conducted a space plan study of Sacramento County Courthouse to determine whether certain court functions could be relocated and fit within identified areas of the building, and determine the feasibility of such relocations relative to existing structural, mechanical and electrical systems/conditions. We also determined associated code upgrades, identified the extent to which fire and life safety code upgrades would be required and estimated the probable cost of construction of the relocations and code upgrades. A resulting project was the renovation of the presiding judge’s courtroom, Department 43, which had no jury box and was not accessible. A corner bench design allowed for placement of a jury box for 14 jurists and proper accessibility in the small 25’-6” wide by 37’-6” deep, 956 sq. ft. remodel.
The project at University of California Davis Medical Center included a two-phase remodel to replace the existing angiographic imaging system with new Siemens Interventional Radiology equipment including two bi-plane Artis C systems and one single plane Robotic Zee Go systems. Work includes the removal of existing imaging equipment, modifications to the mechanical and electrical systems, the installation of new Siemens Imaging equipment and related devices. The support spaces include removal of darkroom equipment in an adjacent room, the installation of scrub sinks and other tenant improvements. The new interventional room will provide both inpatient and outpatient procedures.
For over 30 years, Nacht & Lewis has provided design services to Sacramento County and the Sheriff’s Department for multiple projects at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center (RCCC). Recent projects include a 448-bed medium security (Level II) dormitory, completed in 2000 and two 192-bed, maximum-security housing units. In addition, the firm has designed a new administration building, a new secure perimeter fence with a vehicle sallyport and visitors gatehouse.
Nacht & Lewis continues to work with the Sheriff’s Department to plan the expansion of RCCC to accommodate a growing and changing inmate population. Master planning for the expansion includes new special use housing for medical/mental health treatment, a new intake and booking facility, new education and vocational training classrooms, a new food service and laundry facility and the necessary housing and infrastructure to accommodate up to 5,000 inmates.