Lake Oswego Middle School students walked into a brand-new building on Tuesday, Sept. 8, ending two years of temporary classes at the Uplands Elementary campus.

The rebuilt school at 2500 Country Club Road is the final major project funded by the Lake Oswego School District's 2021 capital construction bond, which also paid for the rebuilt River Grove Elementary School.

The middle school project carried an $85 million budget, the Lake Oswego Review reported.

Tony Vandenberg, the district's executive director of project management, told the Lake Oswego Review in May that the project stayed on track throughout construction.

"We were on or ahead of schedule the entire time," Vandenberg said ahead of the school's ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 11.

More than 800 people attended that ceremony, according to a district newsletter from Superintendent Jennifer Schiele.

Schiele wrote that the school reflects what a community can accomplish when it rallies behind its students.

The two-wing building connects through a skybridge the district calls the "Ecotone," which houses the library on its second floor. One wing holds standard classrooms. The other contains the cafeteria, theater, gyms and music rooms.

A closed courtyard inside the building gives students a secure outdoor space, while a public courtyard at the entrance features basalt slabs and iron mountain ore, a nod to Lake Oswego's material history.

The building channels sunlight indoors through a technique called daylighting, cutting the need for overhead lighting. A heating and cooling system pulls outside air and circulates it through passive exhaust vents on the roof.

The design drew on lessons from the earlier construction of Lakeridge Middle School, Vandenberg told the Review, particularly in how departments are placed and how color schemes guide students through the building.

The school, formally known as Lake Oswego Junior High, is also the newest site for the city's Gallery Without Walls installation. A sculpture called "In the Mystery" by Sharon Warman-Agnor was installed at the campus in May.

With the middle school complete, the district is turning to its next phase of construction. Work funded by the 2025 bond measure begins with the deconstruction of Forest Hills Elementary School.

Forest Hills students moved into the Uplands Elementary campus on Sept. 8, the same day middle schoolers left it for their new building.