I Plus D Magazine - September October 2017

Douglas Fir beams soar up and around the three-story, glass-walled atrium, drenched in sunlight and filled with folks brainstorming about new ideas while lounging amidst booth seating and genius bars that encourage conversation and collaboration. A gratitude wall made of local reclaimed barn wood gives thanks to capital campaign donors with their names forever singed in recognition. Classrooms feature transparent glass walls with integrated technology. And, retention ponds keep storm water on the site to protect the wetlands—just one of many elements that earned the expansive property with a compact footprint a LEED Silver certification.

No, it’s not Google. And, it’s not even a college campus. It’s Alexandria Area High School in Alexandria, Minnesota, and it will make you wish you could go back in time and relive those awkward teenage years.

The school is so innovative that, since it opened in 2014, educators and even businesses have toured it frequently as a reference point for rethinking their approach to their own pursuits. So says John Pfluger, design principal, education, at Cuningham Group Architecture Inc., in Minneapolis, the architect of record for the school’s design. “I remember the first time I toured the previously existing high school with the principal,” Pfluger recalls. “There was no real social place for the kids aside from maybe the cafeteria—they had their locker and that was their personal space. The principal had allowed his student leadership team to remove three bookshelves in the media center and bring in some IKEA modular couches and ottomans with funds that the students had raised. While we were touring, there were about eight kids sitting there using laptops. They looked occupied and productive, but their feet were up and they were chatting and engaged in useful work. The principal said to me, ‘I want the whole school to feel like that. Can it?’”