The latest addition to The Heights Foundation campus is a new 3-story building, with approximately 36,000 GSF of area. It will serve as the new Early Learning and Education Center. This addition builds on the Foundation’s standing commitment to the Harlem Heights community, where Education and Family are at its core. 

With this new facility, the Foundation expects to create a closed-loop learning environment where students will have an opportunity to learn in a facility and program tailored to their specific needs. As well as to reinforce their learning experience at home with parent’s participation at the community’s center. In essence, the Heights Foundation is serving as a vehicle to bridge education at school and home, helping individuals and families gain the necessary tools and means to succeed in life. 

The building has been designed to interact with the campus in alignment with Foundation’s Core Values, by providing community tailored spaces that maximize the learning experience and community interaction. A large arrival space (outdoors and indoors) will guide parents and kids to the early learning center on the ground floor, and on to the education center on the second and third floors. All classrooms have been designed with natural light, flexibility and technology in mind.

The lobby was intentionally designed to provide a grand experience that marks the significant milestone of beginning the learning process in any individual’s life and that of their family. The center has a large multi-purpose room with a capacity to serve meals for 180 students at any given time, and it will also be used as an assembly space for school related functions. 

Because the arts play a large role in the education model used at the center, the building also features inspiring music and art labs. Both these spaces were designed with access to an outdoor terrace to encourage arts exploration and interaction with the environment. The terrace will also host the aquaponics and hydroponics labs. An outdoor play pavilion was included as part of the design for PE activities. 

The new structure interacts with the east side of existing building by slowly scaling up from the community center’s one-story mass to the new 3rd floor terrace and up to the 3rd floor roof. It approaches the main road with a multi-height elevation that steps down to the southeast for interaction with the human and vehicular scale. 

The building is a small version of urban elements in the middle of suburbia, opening the horizon of its community to a multi-faceted experience, just as the community stands in the context of their background and the larger opportunities that await students in the future.