San Rafael synagogue swaps brick for forest views and light stone

A forest view now does the talking at a new synagogue in northern California.

Herman Coliver Locus Architecture in San Francisco has completed the Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael, California, a light, sandy stone building with its main sanctuary lifted to the second floor to face the mountains and forested hills to the east, Dezeen reported.

The new building replaces a previous brick structure on the site. The architects described that earlier building as weighty and opaque. The replacement is designed to feel open and welcoming, a brief developed with congregants.

Visitors arrive by the Community Entry Path, a slightly elevated pathway. The plan is L-shaped and organised around a central courtyard on the lower floor.

That lower level holds the everyday life of the congregation. Around the courtyard sit a kitchen, staff offices, a social hall and a youth lounge.

Upstairs is different. The sanctuary and the Beit Midrash, the smaller chapel used for smaller services, sit in two sculptural volumes on the upper level. A double-height lobby links to the main sanctuary by a grand staircase.

The sanctuary has a vaulted ceiling finished in slats and timber. The vault opens into a giant window over the California forest. The room was placed upstairs for a simple reason. Congregants said they felt closest to God when in nature.

The sanctuary connects by a patio to the Beit Midrash. The chapel has a slightly curved roof that recalls the slopes of the surrounding hills.

Inside the sanctuary, the focus is the Torah ark, the cabinet that holds the Torah scrolls. It is covered with hammered copper triangles.

The project has been several years in the making. The congregation hired the firm to design its new home in San Rafael, and Cahill Contractors was selected to oversee construction, JWeekly reported. The building was planned to meet the highest tier of green building code compliance in Marin County. As of July 2022, US$28 million had been raised for the project.

The studio, also known as HCLA, describes itself as a practice focused on affordable housing, sacred spaces, community centres and other mid-sized civic buildings. Supplier BOK Modern provided balcony guardrails, canopies and sunshades for the project.

What makes this stand out is the flip. The quiet rooms are downstairs around a courtyard. The sacred rooms are upstairs in the trees.