Recommended since 2010; 2009 Readers’ Choice Award, #15, Top 20 Family Resorts

Opened in 2003, The San Jose Marriott hotel is an upscale 26-story, 506-room full-service hotel with 21,000 square feet of meeting space and a fine-dining restaurant.

Prominently located on a one-acre site adjacent to the McEnery Convention Center, at the corner of Market and San Carlos Streets, the hotel tower punctuates the city’s skyline and acts as a way-finder to convention goers and hotel guests from almost any downtown destination.

“This project really stood out as one of the city’s finest modern-era buildings…the use of color, materials, forms, spaces and detailing give the overall building a look of strength and elegance,” says Kent Mather, chair of the Associations Downtown Design Committee.

Incorporating a rambling form punctuated by a grand, central building, its design includes steeply pitched roofs that shed snow, shallow eaves, heavy timber, shiplap siding and a rustic granite base. The building, constructed over the course of three summer cycles, moves in natural contour with the mountain: A series of terraces and pavilions step down the hill, anchored by the stone and concrete center.

Its site-at the top of a veritable long and winding Highlands Road off Highway 267-is intentional. “We wanted to create an arrival for guests like that of a national park,” says Mark Hornberger, of San Francisco-based architecture firm Hornberger + Worstell. “Guests come to Tahoe to ski. We wanted an arrival sequence that didn’t present acres of parking. We wanted to get cars out of their psyche and view.” An underground garage helps further that goal; a gondola connects the hotel directly to the Village at Northstar, below.

The hotel’s main entrance leads visitors up through a multi-story, octagonal “Head House” that is centered around a 55-foot-high fireplace, its 200 tons of weathered granite affixed by Truckee’s Johansen Masonry. The pinwheel ascension of the spiral staircase gives guests pause and orients them as they make their way to the second-story lobby, where 25-foot windows frame views-which Hornberger and his team established via several snowshoe outings-of Martis Valley and the surrounding forested slopes.

“The fireplace is a functional icon, a pivotal point of the composition,” says Hornberger. “Different experiences around the lobby are all connected by the fireplace column.” Part of the overall “forest hall” leitmotif, the imposing pillar is crowned with a contemporary extraction of tree branches.

San Francisco’s BraytonHughes Design Studios selected a palette that reflects the surrounding landscape; hues such as Indian paintbrush red, pine green and wild rose yellow are used in custom carpets, draperies and furnishings. The cedar plank woodwork and alpine green slate floor were locally sourced. Works by local artists and photographers, including Joan Davis, Jim “JB” Bu.dny, Olaf and Elizabeth Carmel, Chris Crossen and Niobe Burden, are hung throughout the hotel, further tying the Ritz-Carlton to context and community.

The ski-in, ski-out property, which also includes fullownership residences, was LEED-certified last year, in part for its use of recycled steel, energy efficient heating and cooling systems, low-VOC paints, large expanses of daylighting and a green cleaning program. And that certainly deserves a gold star.

Students have been a driving force since the beginning, voting in favor of a $110 per semester fee increase and sitting on committees to review design and offer input on the WELL. The WELL also meets LEED Gold standards. FSC-certified wood and recycled materials were used in construction along with implementing a landfill diversion program. “One of the WELL’s most visible sustainable features is an entrance atrium with a skylight made of an innovative thermo plastic material developed by NASA that not only helps regulate building temperature, but also makes students feel welcome by bathing the space in natural light,” Davis said.

Unlike other campus fitness facilities that focus on exercise alone, The WELL (Wellness, Education, Leisure, Lifestyle) will be the heart of student life, uniting fitness, medical care, and social activity spaces under one roof. The combination of these vital aspects of student life will form a synergy in that the success of one will directly benefit the others.

While the physical benefits of exercise are well established, awareness of the additional benefits – social, cognitive, and emotional – is gaining legitimacy as health professionals increasingly define the connection between mind and body. It is with this growing understanding of the importance of physical activity beyond the rudimentary goal of having a fit student body that Sacramento State is pursuing this project.

The WELL will provide whole-health care for 28,000 students and 3,400 faculty and staff through a broad spectrum of amenities and services: a rock climbing wall, four basketball courts, a large multi-activity court for sports like indoor hockey or soccer, studios for cardio, weight training, and an array of exercise classes, a pharmacy, a lab, as well as health offices for physical therapy, nutrition, optometry, and mental health. Offering a truly unique integration of services, The WELL will reinforce prevention-oriented missions and offer students the ability to become active participants in their health.

Representing health on yet another level, the WELL will be the first building on the Sacramento State campus to pursue LEED Gold certification from the United States Green Building Council. As a LEED Gold facility, the Center represents a combination of best practices in design, engineering, and construction. Some of the facility’s sustainable features include the use of FSC certified wood (92%), the incorporation of recycled materials (25%), and the implementation of a landfill waste diversion program (84%). The building also offers 70 bike parking spaces, nearby access to a light rail station, and roofing and paving materials selected for their reduced heat absorption. The University looks forward to the various ways that these sustainable features will be woven into the curriculum and the use of the building as an educational tool.

One of the Center’s most visible sustainable features, an entrance atrium with a skylight made of an innovative thermo plastic material developed by NASA, not only helps regulate building temperature, but also makes students feel welcome by bathing the space in natural light. At night, this monumental, 40-foot-wide skylight will emanate a soft light, serving as a beacon for the campus. As Hornberger + Worstell’s Burton Miller, FAIA design principal explains, “Especially given that The WELL will define the largest quad and hub of the campus, we wanted to design a place of memorable form and strong identity – a place where students will feel a sense of belonging.”

The entry experience created by the atrium will also address the way-finding issues that typically accompany buildings of this size. Unlike the notorious airports, malls, or health care facilities with awkward corridor connections and poor functional adjacencies that force users to walk down long hallways searching for the right direction, the atrium serves as a radial passageway system that leads visitors in the right direction. Furthermore, with all of the recreation spaces programmed on one side of the building, and all of the medical spaces programmed on the other, visitors will be able to quickly decide which direction to choose. Looking for medical care? Turn left. Looking for fitness classes? Turn right.

Light continues as a theme throughout the building. The WELL’s sweeping, largely transparent facade reveals the activity and excitement of the building to the main quad. As Hornberger + Worstell’s John Davis, AIA managing principal explains, “Standing in front of The WELL’s 420-foot-long facade will be like watching a panoramic, multi-screen movie with glimpses of students exercising on equipment, practicing yoga, or performing martial arts. The large expanses of glass on the facade enabled us to both activate the quad and flood the inside with natural light.”

The San Francisco office of Ellerbe Becket, an AECOM company, partnered with Hornberger + Worstell throughout the planning of The WELL, with a particular focus on programming and the design of the health services spaces. The firm’s renowned expertise in sports and healthcare architecture made them an ideal partner. The director of health services, Joy Stewart-James, and her staff also collaborated with Ellerbe Becket in finalizing the design of The WELL’s health services spaces by analyzing the practices and inefficiencies of the existing medical facility. Through this collaboration, Ellerbe Becket was able to create a flexible and hospitable new facility that would be best organized, staffed and operated. “We are proud and excited,” said Bill Crockett, AIA, LEED AP principal and director of sports architecture for Ellerbe Becket, “to realize the clients’ vision for ‘relational integration,’ creating what we believe is the first of a new generation of wellness facilities for higher education communities.”

The WELL’s opening is part of the University’s Destination 2010 celebration, a year-long observance of the initiative that has enhanced Sacramento State’s academic programs, student support services, and facilities since its launch in 2004 by University President Alexander Gonzalez. The design team is pleased to be a part of the making of The WELL with the help of green build consultants Simon & Associates, interior designers Phyllis Martin-Vegue and Carol Padham, construction manager at risk and general contractor McCarthy Building Companies, Inc., construction manager and inspector of record Tony Moayed of TMCS, and Entre Prises Climbing Walls.