The Head Start Facilities Design Competition 03, Detail Plans
- Title:
- The Head Start Facilities Design Competition 03, Detail Plans
Axonometrics
Elevations of 'Blocks A, B + C' - Collection:
- John Clair Miller
- Designer:
- John Clair Miller
Andrea Simitch
Val Warke
- Project Owner:
- Sponsor – The Early Childhood Facilities Fund of New Jersey
- Date:
- 1994
- Location:
- New Jersey, United States (state)
- Country:
- United States
- ID Number:
- JCM_HST_007
- File Name:
- JCM_HST_007.jpg
- Project Title:
- The Head Start Facilities Design Competition 03
- Project Type:
- Competition Entry
- Culture:
- American
- Style/Period:
- Contemporary
- Work Type:
- plans (orthographic projections)
proposals
architectural drawings (visual works) - Materials/Techniques:
- ink
paper (fiber product) - Subject:
- board games (activities)
games
blocks (shaped masses)
blocks (toys)
text (layout feature) - Image View Type:
- General
- Image View Description:
- Detail Plans
Axonometrics
Elevations of 'Blocks A, B + C' - Measurement:
- 45.5 x 30.5 (centimeters)
- Description:
- Program – ‘Patterns for Head Start.’ Design an innovative solution for a new Head Start Facility to be located in New Jersey. Develop a proto-type for the facility, a proto-type that can be used in various site situations. Program includes classrooms, administrative offices, support facilities and covered exterior teaching and play areas.
The focus became the development of three unique identifiable blocks - A, B + C. Blocks that could be re–arranged depending on the unique and specific conditions of a selected building site. The blocks reside under a large roof, ‘umbrella.’ Each block contained a specific program or set of functions. (A) classrooms with wet area and related storage. (B) reception, education and administration offices and meeting space. (C) food preparation facilities, restrooms and maintenance/storage facilities. Under the ‘umbrella’ were exterior teaching and play areas. One play area existed within the courtyard space made by the three blocks and one play area was on the roof of block A. The classrooms and the dining space had direct relationships to exterior spaces, making the conditions of the immediate environments part of the teaching and play experiences. This Head Start facility uses the concept of a game – with its rules, game board, and playing pieces – in its development as a potential prototype. In this case, the Board is a large tilting roof with a grid of columns, lights, and plantings that mark the Board’s spaces. Within this Board are placed three distinct building Blocks: programmatic containers that can be rearranged in response to various site constraints and environmental interests. Each Block is constructed of a separate set of common materials, and, therefore, can be variously identified by its unique acoustics, its textures and the way it collects and distributes sunlight/rain. When these Blocks are placed together beneath the roof/Board, the building as a whole can be understood as a cohesive society comprised of individual identities. In addition, the use of known elements – like garage doors, fish tanks, and utilitarian materials – in unusual and unexpected ways is intended to impart a sense of wonder for the world that the children already inhabit. The space captured between the Blocks become like the spaces of a city or landscape: crevices make “secret hiding places”
elevated platforms become “tree houses”, and the largest space - shaped by parts of all three Blocks and open to nature [represented by the real farmed fields of the site and the artificial-grassy mound containing the storage building] - becomes like a town square or a farm compound. Functioning as the multi-purpose room and the playground, these two important central spaces are permitted to flow into each other. Like a town square, it provides not only a space for circulating and a place of encounters, but a stage for special community events like a traditional New Jersey barnyard, it is surrounded on three sides by its utility buildings with the fourth open to nature. - Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the John Clair Miller Collection (here presented as “Projects”, “Competitions” and “Collages”) and the John Clair Miller Image Collection of Twentieth-Century Architecture in Iceland are protected by copyright, and the copyright holder is their creator/photographer, John Clair Miller. Images in the John Clair Miller Collection were created between 1962-2007, and were digitized by Cornell University Library. Images in the John Clair Miller Image Collection of Twentieth-Century Architecture in Iceland date from 2001-2007, and were digitized from 35mm slides by Cornell University Library in 2016. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.