Head Start Early Childhood Educational Center

This conceptual project for a Head Start prototype explores the micro-environment of the early childhood classroom. Classrooms are coupled for economy, to encourage communal events, and to suggest "neighborhoods" within the larger facility. Each mirrored pair is then clustered to suit the needs of a specific site. The site arrangement articulates the public-to-private procession while creating a variety of securable interior and exterior communal spaces. The project’s outer, protective L-shaped wall fronting the street and a parking grove serves to buffer the sound of the nearby NJ Turnpike. To bring topography variety to an otherwise flat site, interior spaces are arranged along a shallow ramp, which descends around a central, outdoor playcourt.  Staff, parent services and multi-purpose rooms are consolidated between the outer wall and the playcourt. Prototypical classrooms, striving to break free from this order, radiate outward from the center toward the surrounding landscape and become nearly independent pavilions. Vistas open up to the outdoor play areas and the woods along the back of the site. The ramped circulation culminates in the multi-purpose room, which opens to the central court for indoor-outdoor events.

This work was a collaboration between Michael Costantin and Brian Swier.