Lakeridge Middle School

With its welcoming, biophilic environment, Lakeridge Middle School is designed to support the unique needs of the middle school learner. The biophilic elements within the building’s circulation, material palette, and performance continually reinforce a connection to nature, which has been shown to create improved learning outcomes. The “loop” organization of the building creates an engaging and active environment that exposes the teenage learner to multiple learning opportunities. 

The school's structural system is almost entirely wood, from the wood shear-wall gym to the balloon-framed wood walls to the tree columns. The only elements that are not wood are the concrete foundation and a few concrete shear walls (used only where wood walls would not meet the structural requirements of the condition). Locally-sourced dowel-laminated-timber (DLT) ceilings create an intimate scale across the public areas of the school. This single material serves as a structural element, providing acoustic absorption and forming a final finish that ties into biophilic and low-carbon goals. The library benefits from the warmth of the wood to achieve the District’s goal to “create a more intimate space to celebrate reading the printed word.”

The team identified Oregon White Oak, Scarlet Oak, and Sweetgum as varieties for 29 columns (16 interior and 13 exterior).  All work to prepare the trees for use as columns was done within a 200-mile radius of the project site. These columns are approximately the same as an HSS steel column for the same load. (The average column stores over 1,000 lbs CO2e. Estimate of all columns stores over 11 US tons of CO2e.)