Headstart Prototype Pre-school
New Jersey
for
role
status
year
GSA
Principal
Competition Entry
1994
The competition sought solutions for 8000-sf prototypical pre-school facility which would include classrooms, staff support spaces, family & social services spaces, a multipurpose area, administrative offices, nutrition and health services and a kitchen. Protected and secure outdoor play areas were required along with onsite parking. The site was a 1.5-acre flat parcel surrounded by agriculture and commercial and municipal facilities. The design should have the potential to be adopted to locations nation-wide.
The project proposed a simple square plan. While being expressive of the elemental nature of the program, the configuration lent itself to multiple permutations, much like a set of building blocks, and flexibility in adapting to different site conditions. To mitigate its visual presence on the site and to ensure the safety of the children by giving it a clearly defined perimeter, the large parking lot was depressed by 3’ and planted at its edge. This depressed datum was extended into the building becoming the entrance from the parking lot at the northwest to the administration (adult) wing. The upper entry, accessed from the main drive and school bus drop-off at the north east, lead to the educational (children’s) wing. This sectional shift of the two “wings” served to provide a degree of separation between the worlds of the adults and children acknowledging a mutual need for sanctuary and privacy for simultaneous work and play to take place. This separation was negotiated by two gentle ramps.
As important to providing separation, this sectional shift situated the adults at the level of the child’s perspective lending a quality that the space was scaled to the child and privileged his/her experience and environment. This principal, that this is a building designed for children, was further elaborated in the exterior wall. First the wall is horizontally stratified to provide viewing to the exterior that is accessible only from the child’s perspective. Furthermore, the child is invited to “inhabit” the wall as it provides points of access to the outdoors through a system of integrated play equipment and balconies scaled to be accessible solely by the children.
The design could be adapted to different structural systems depending on local conditions. The building maximized the use of day lighting though a system of clearstories and skylights.
