State officials overseeing construction of the planned $145 million Mendocino County Courthouse are pushing back against harsh local criticism of its design.
In August, when preliminary renderings of the new courthouse were retrieved and published from the Judicial Council of California website, county residents were derisive of depictions of a stark white three-story courthouse ringed by dark vertical sections enveloping windows around the building’s exterior.
Critics lambasted the design as resembling a ‘bar code,’ looking more like a prison than a civic center.
They also questioned plans calling for the new courthouse to face East on a 4.1-acre site on the south side of Perkins Street at the historic railroad depot. That means the building will turn its back on Ukiah’s core downtown to the West where a courthouse has been located since 1860.
State and local court officials were stung by the local criticism and offered a follow up conference call to explain the decision making, and what factors influenced the final design. Architect Kahyun Lee, a 15-year-veteran of public building design, agreed to a second interview this week.
While input from city and county officials, and the public, is solicited, it is the Judicial Council of California that oversees financing, designing and awarding contracts for courthouse construction statewide. After years of delay, the Mendocino County Courthouse project is at the top of a state priority list.
The new courthouse will be constructed on a narrow north-south parcel which limits how it can be positioned, said John Kudrycki, principal project manager for Fentress Architects, the Colorado-based firm that is a project partner with builder Hensel Phelps Contruction Co., a global firm founded in Colorado in the 1930s.
Kudrycki said as a result the rear of the new courthouse will be butt up against existing railroad tracks. The site was purchased by the state in 2012 from the North Coast Railroad Authority.
“To be able to provide access, public parking in front, and staff parking to the south of the building, we were limited in its placement,” said Kudrycki.
Robert Shue, project manager for the Judicial Council of California, toured Mendocino County with architect Lee before plans were put on paper. “We believe the design incorporates the best of the county,” he said.
Lee said their onsite research included Mendocino County’s courthouse history, the influence of the county’s agricultural base including inland vineyards, and rugged coastal landscapes that attract visitors worldwide.
Lee said, however, it was a walk among towering ancient redwoods in Montgomery Redwoods State Natural Reserve west of Ukiah that provided major design inspiration.
Lee recalled a lingering sense of awe the first time she witnessed shafts of sunlight piercing through the redwood forest canopy.
“It was a sensation I had not experienced before. I wanted to learn more,” said Lee.
Lee’s further research led her to the term ‘shivelight,’ a 19th century descriptive first used by English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. It described a clear shaft of sunlight piercing the canopy of a forest.
“It was the light in the forest that really moved me,” recalled Lee. “I wanted to bring that sensation into the interior public spaces of the new courthouse.”
The shafts of sunlight she witnessed at Montgomery Woods became the inspiration for her decision to place narrow widths of windows across the front and around the walls of the three-story courthouse.
“I wanted to evoke the experiences Mendocino County residents enjoy walking in the redwood forests,” said Lee.
Lee said the overall effect will be enhanced by landscaping at the new courthouse site where trees will grow tall, and native plant species will carpet the grounds.
“I believe that when the project is completed, the new courthouse will reflect Mendocino County, and what its citizens want in public buildings,” said Lee.
Kim Turner, executive officer for the Mendocino County Superior Court, has worked closely with the Judicial Council on the new design. Turner said she and the judges are satisfied.
“We understand how the architects were struck by the way sunlight comes through the redwoods. We know these filtered shafts of light create interesting shadows and provide a sense of movement in the forest,” said Turner.
Turner said the exterior design of the building is “intended to replicate the verticality of the redwoods, with shivelight coming through the interior public corridors.”
“We believe the architects have done a masterful job of incorporating a sense of Mendocino County’s appreciation for its beautiful redwood forests into the design of the building,” said Turner.
With the planned landscaping, Turner said the trees, grasses, pollinators and groundcovers outside will “complete a design that honors the heritage and environmental diversity of Mendocino County.”
Construction of the 81,169 square foot building is slated to begin early next year, with completion expected in late 2027.
The Fentress/Hensel Phelps team is the state’s designated design-builder for the single largest civic construction project in Mendocino County history.
For an updated view online of current state plans for the new Mendocino County Courthouse, see
2024-1003-Design-Review_UKIAH-Media-1-1
I’m so sad that many people will read this propaganda and adopt the same position. If it reflected the county and people loved it and were awed by it, that would have been the sentiment.
Instead, another bland, contemporary building that will go over budget, exist in the wrong place, that will just go to show that the government and its contractors will wipe their ass with you and send you a bill.
You guys are focusing on like three people criticizing the design of the building when 99.98% of the town who is criticizing the construction of this is criticizing it because of the lack of infrastructure for the rest of the city while you guys are spending millions of dollars to look pretty while incarcerating the public.
It has nothing to do with the way the building looks, it has everything to do with mismanagement of the money in town.
Another glaring mismanagement of money is State Street from Gobi to Ford Street. Y’all thought it would be smart too reduce everything down to two lanes which is now causing massive traffic congestion and will cause even more in the future when it’s done.
Y’all don’t even know how to build a fucking town so why the hell are you guys trying to do this shit?
Is there even a real reason why we need a new courthouse? Is the old courthouse filled with asbestos? Are there so many criminals that you can’t process all of them? Maybe you guys should keep people in jail longer for their crimes and then we won’t have as many criminals on the street. Have you guys figured out different ways of punishing people? I like the idea of public shaming for low-end crimes.
How about turning it into a fucking rehab center for all the druggies in towns instead of a courthouse so you can process more people into the jail system?
Has anybody even put real rational thought into this or somebody in the town just like “fuck bro we got to spend $150 million somehow or else we’re not going to get extra tax incentives in the future” ????
You guys don’t think 150 million dollars would be better put towards DRUG REDUCTION PROGRAMS AND MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMS IN OUR TOWN FILLED WITH HOMELESS CRAZY DRUG ADDICTS?!
????????
State funds. Not city of ukiah. The old courthouse is not seismically safe. So if the state funds it, and it’s already budgeted for replacement, then it’s not such a bad thing.
So they can stabilize a bridge but they can’t stabilize a building what’s up with that
Summridge I’m convinced the yokels in this town will never get it. They actually think this is something the City of Ukiah is choosing to do in all its wisdom with its lack of money.
Typical judicial bureaucrats. Don’t listen, Know all. Tone deaf. Bullies. We know best STFU !! Sickening. Poor Ukiah stuck with that vile structure looming over all. Like something out of an on Orwell novel.
Looks like a bar code to me. Not certain where the redwoods BS was started. Most likely it was 2 minutes after they realized it looked like a bar code and needed some woke description of why.
Luckily we are in a time when anyone one can be anything so now anything can be anything. Bar codes can be a redwood forest and therefore trash cans can be sports cars. Let’s see what we can dream up next.
Exactly. Folks have been likening it to a barcode since the first rendering was shown, and suddenly now they want to feed us the poppycock that it’s inspired by a redwood forest??? Alas, maybe that’s how some of these propeller-hat nerds see and interpret a redwood forest, which in itself is pretty scary.
They threw it all in a AI computer program and developed the design. Have you ever seen that YouTube video of the person who wanted the picture put on the banner and their faces come out all square and weird because timu did it. That’s exactly what we got is a AI generated design with no thought and if we use AI to this is what stuff looks like.
Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom when it went deeply socialist, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterized by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design.
It projects the totaliistic control of a government over a mind numb sheeple. A government riddled with corruption where political apparatchiks cannot be challenged. It is meant not to be friendly nor welcoming to new ideas or freedoms but projects a regimented path almost Stalinist.
Fits right in with Mendocino Culture of intolerance by the elite leftists.
Chilling observation.
Being inspired by the redwoods is awesome. Developing a tall, narrow awkward building and adding narrow windows feels like it is going to evoke prison type images in many people’s minds. If you want it to feel like the redwoods, you need to bring redwood into it. I know everything is now built with steel but redwood paneling is warm and friendly and can be done with repurposed wood. It is rich and calming and outdoors feeling. It can be finished so no one would ever know it is reused. Then you would evoke the redwoods with redwood instead of a building that looks f3om the exterior like it is so narrow and tall, it will not withstand years of harsh weather. Please build a beautiful courthouse and not just an ugly monolith.
If towns got new schools and hospitals instead of new courthouses…….
Too bad they can’t double the size to five or six stories and put a new jail on top of the courthouse like a lot of counties. This could house the non-sentenced inmates and elevate the need for transport to court. This would also elevate the crowding at the jail on Low Gap.
*alleviate
Looks like a prison. What a blight. I don’t even want a courthouse in town. That place is nothing but bad and oppressive.
I still think it’s incredibly creepy that it’s going to be the tallest building in Ukiah blooming down on the top of everyone
My husband says it should be built with Roman design since they were known to be one of the first empires to have Organized judiciary systems.
I however love that Lee was so inspired by the Shivelight! I love that she conducts her architectural design upon inspiration from nature. People that have know insight to this must not know what it’s like to loose inspiration and then get it back vis versa. It’s a gift and I’m so happy to hear that our court house might come to life from a pure manifestation of someone that knows joy and the true meaning behind natures beauty.
Idiot or master of facetious?
Comparing this courthouse design to the light coming through the redwoods, is like putting lipstick on a pig. It’s insulting. The design is not pretty. It’s a courthouse but they could do better than this. Our town has undergone some changes, like state street, which may have sounded good, but everyone I talk to hates the bulb outs, as they hit their tires when making a turn. Traffic is worse because of two lanes instead of four, and the grass plantings are pretty but they block our view of pedestrians or someone say in a wheelchair. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
I have committed to riding over the curb in my tiny truck. Otherwise I would hit the person at the intersection. Hopefully the courthouse and street engineers are different firms.
Me too. Better then hitting the car in the next lane
Thanks for mentioning the tall grass blocking view pedestrian to drivers. I called and complained. A not tall man was standing at the Victoria Theater crossing behind the grass & couldn’t see him until upon the crossing?? It’s a law suit waiting to happen. In fact they really created a dangerous mix up of obstacles to drive around. You would think easy fix for grass. Take out the grass. A hello. Just take it out. But got told they paid for the design….the city is keeping the grass. You can’t go back after someone is hit by a car. Safety isn’t their priority obviously. Narrow one lanes are jammed at commute hours. No emergency vehicles will get through at certain times. State Street is the main artery of the town…not a park. The priorities are really messed up. Looks over working & safe. Ugh.
Streams of light flows through cinder blocks. Oh look I’m in an Octopus garden.
Ugly block of cement. Sell the plans to Korea they really like these designs.
Looks like a prison. What a blight.
As long as they don’t let the old courthouse sit and rot like the Palace I don’t care.
You guys do understand you are looking at a computer rendering right? Maybe that’s why it looks so computery?
As a real building with landscaping I bet it will look better than any costco or panda express. In the recent past that space featured a whole “alternate lifestlye” encampment next to River Oak School and the Senior Center. Kids where getting harassed when leaving school. I too associate government with betrayal, corruption, etc etc, but that’s humanity. This isn’t something that can be stopped however, and our breath is better spent figuring out how to get this kind of money into our school systems to teach kids about civilty, coexisting, critical thinking, communication and shared goals, along with literacy, math and sciences, music and art, history.
Uninspired Walmart-blah architecture. “Soviet-style”describes it perfectly. Why not face the outside with local stone? Add a water feature? Use local woods (not redwood, though, let those condensers grow and do their thing), like oak to make it beautiful? Mosaics? A green-wall? Is this building a green building? There are so many talented artists in Mendocino County, why not ask for suggestions?
Shafts of light my ass.
It’s ugly, unimaginative Brutalist architecture. Nothing but flat planes and right angles.
A blight on the city of Ukiah and the county of mendocino for the next century or more.
Congratulations, asshole architects and asshole apparatchiks who approved the design.
It is a kind of boring design but whatever. It looks more like a barcode than a forest, lol. I hope they don’t get rid of the old courthouse since it looks cool.