Trinity School at River Ridge - Eagan, Minnesota
By: Jennifer Walker - Journey
The halls of Trinity School at River Ridge felt confining – too confining, in fact, for a school designed to unlock students’ potential and encourage their intellectual curiosity.
The River Ridge campus operated in a former Bloomington, Minnesota, elementary school building. Just walking the halls of the old schoolhouse designed for young children made the faculty and junior/senior high students feel like giants among the tight hallways, small bathrooms, and short drinking fountains. However, it was a home for the school. And, for many years, it was enough.
The school was opened in 1987 as one of three Trinity campuses founded by People of Praise, an international association of Christian laypersons. Its other campuses are located in South Bend, Indiana, and Falls Church, Virginia. The school leadership bought the building in 1991 and made do the best they could.
“We had a ‘gymette’ that primarily served as a place for students to eat lunch,” said Rochelle Platter, director of community relations for Trinity at River Ridge. “And, we improvised with creativity so students could have science labs.”
By December 2004, the school leadership was within days of calling an architect to design an expansion to the existing building that included a high school gym and five new classrooms when the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) contacted the school. The Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport was expanding its runway, which would result in an increase of noise level of more than 65 decibels at the school. As a consolation, the Airports Commission offered to give the school $7 million for sound abatement projects to reduce the noise from aircraft. Then, a commissioner made an unusual remark. He said, “Why not take the money and run?”
It stopped school officials in their tracks, and they said, “Why not?”
Trinity hired Short Elliott Henderickson, Inc. (SEH), from St. Paul, Minnesota, and architect David Cihasky was brought on as the project manager. The school expressed its needs and Cihasky took note. It needed physics and chemistry labs, a two-station gymnasium, fully wired large classrooms, tutorial rooms, a large commons area, a media center, choral and instrument rooms, and a 700-seat auditorium.
“The resounding factor was an overall lack of space and general lack of proper educational infrastructure, including inadequate science labs, art room, music classrooms, gymnasium space – they actually practiced and played basketball and volleyball at a different location,” Cihasky said. “They really needed a new facility.”
Cihasky began by presenting the school three plans. The design that was chosen was tweaked to meet the school’s specific needs. As the layout was coming together, Cihasky began to visualize what the building’s exterior should look like.
“Since the educational delivery method at the school is Socratic-based, I thought that a southern Mediterranean style for the exterior would be appropriate,” he said. “I did some general research on buildings of the Mediterranean in the early middle ages. Two in particular that caught my eye were the Baptistery of St. Jean in Poitiers, France, and San Pedro dela Nave, in El Campilo, Spain. I very ‘loosely’ took some design cues/elements from this era of architecture and tried to implement those cues in areas of this new facility. The good news was they really liked the first elevation concept.”
From there, Cihasky enhanced the design and the design elements, utilizing various natural and man-made stone and brick components, selecting the shingles to mimic clay tile, and introducing dentals in a few locations.
By mid-September 2006, the school began construction.
“The biggest challenge was the budget,” Cihasky said. “The plans were issued with a series of several ‘add-alternatives.’ The project budget for construction was $12 million, but the project wants and needs were in the $18 million range – a shortfall of $6 million.”
The alternatives enabled the school to put some projects, such as not finishing the gymnasium and the locker rooms, on hold. But after bids came in and construction was under way, donations started coming in.
“Our donors were incredibly generous to Trinity School, and we made many new friends in the process who didn’t know a school such as Trinity existed in the Twin Cities,” said Peg Louiselle, the school’s director of development.
When the donations came in, the school was able to complete the full project as well as some additional enhancements, including increasing the height of the auditorium ceiling.
“This presented a huge challenge because we were making substantial design changes while footings and foundations were being placed. A significant amount of coordination was required by the SEH design team and all of the contractors,” Cihasky said.
Just more than a year later, for the new 2008 school year, Trinity School was complete. Students finished the semester at the old school and headed home for Christmas break. When they returned, they gathered at the new school.
“The aesthetic difference between our old facility and the new one is huge,” Platter said. “There has been a resounding enthusiasm among the Trinity School staff and families as we’ve been in our new building.”
Short Elliott Henderickson, Inc. (SEH), www.sehinc.com, is a multidiscipline, single-source consulting firm of engineers, architects, planners, and scientists. It is located in St. Paul, Minnesota.
FAST FACTS
School: Trinity School at River Ridge
Location: Eagan, Minnesota
Student Body: 360 students (capacity of 420)
Grades Served: 7th to 12th grade
Cost: $18 million
Size: 94,000 square feet
Project Goal: Build a new school building that would give the students plenty of space not only to learn but to gather casually
Challenge: Designing the school to complement its educational philosophy
Solution: The architect played off of the school’s Socratic-based education delivery method to design a building reminiscent of the southern Mediterranean.
