A Tour of Rock Ridge High School in Virginia, Minnesota
By Chris Hudson | February 20, 2025
The main entry. Photo by Morgan Sheff.
PROJECT GALLERY
The 2023 ENTER print annual spotlighted Laurentian Elementary, the first completed school in Rock Ridge Public Schools, a district formed by the merging of the Virginia and Eveleth-Gilbert districts in 2020. The state-of-the-art building takes its architectural profile and material palette from the Iron Range landscape, and it organizes two flexible, adaptable learning neighborhoods around a soaring commons.
In fall 2023, the district grew its new campus with Rock Ridge High School. Like its grade school neighbor, the high school features ever-present visual and material connections to its surroundings and arranges project-based learning neighborhoods and lab spaces around an open, central commons. Also like Laurentian, Rock Ridge High School achieves advanced energy performance and occupant comfort thanks to an exceptionally air-tight building envelope.
Images 1–14: Rock Ridge Public Schools, formed in 2020, is the envy of school districts across the state with its world-class Rock Ridge High School (shown here) and Laurentian Elementary (not shown). Photos by Morgan Sheff. Plans by Cuningham.
Cuningham was the design architect for both schools. The firm collaborated with local partner DSGW Architecture on Rock Ridge High School.
“We started by listening. We got together with as many community members as we could to hear what they were looking for,” says Cuningham associate Hailey Wrasman. “We heard a lot about collaboration and choice, so we reevaluated what a learning community looks like with these priorities in mind. As a result, Rock Ridge High School’s learning neighborhoods contain a range of dynamic, open collaborative spaces on the edges. And in the middle, we enclosed rooms for breakout and focus. Now, we see students and staff working together in different ways because the space is designed to support that.”
“Our vision for the design of Rock Ridge High School was to create a place that was a one-of-a-kind facility for the communities of Eveleth-Gilbert and Virginia,” says Cuningham principal John Pfluger, FAIA. “The mining culture and the geology of the land was a big influence in the physical design of the space and the site. Where the building is sited was incumbered with bedrock debris from years of construction development around it. The best place for the school was on that, so it became a process of actually healing the land and returning it to a place that’s better than we found it.
“Indoor/outdoor connections was a design principle that we became relentless about implementing,” Pfluger continues. “Anywhere you are in the school, you become aware of your context. You have these central common spaces that connect the two three-story learning communities, so you’re always passing the courtyard, which is the key to navigating the school.”
“You walk into this amazingly bright space, and you still feel like you’re outdoors,” says DSGW Architecture principal interior designer Julie Spiering. DSGW was founded in Virginia in 1938 and still has an office in the community (along with four others in Minnesota and Wisconsin). That local history and expertise was an important connection for a project that represented significant change for Virginia, Eveleth, and Gilbert. The firm was also involved in the indoor and outdoor athletic spaces.
Learn more about the design of Rock Ridge High School in this video produced by Old Saw Media.
The Rock Ridge High School project team included Cuningham, CMTA, DSGW Architecture, Intertek Group, Kimley-Horn, Kraus-Anderson, Kvernstoen, Rönnholm & Associates, Reengineered, Rippe Associates, Schuler Shook, Summit Fire Consulting, Northland Consulting Engineers, Continua, Acre, and Innovative Office.
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