Jefferson Early Learning Center

Houston, Texas

Firm

PBK

Client

Alief Independent School District

Area

80,557 sq.ft.

Total Cost

$22,432,184

Completion Date

08/2022

Wade Griffith

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Alief ISD’s Jefferson Early Learning Center campus is organized into two villages that provide students with a sense of community and place. Each village has three neighborhoods: Discovery, Inquiry, and Voyage. Each neighborhood has four houses or experiences with a shared collaboration area. Following the theme of connecting children to nature and a sense of place, each village has unique outdoor learning environments; a centralized courtyard and two outdoor exploration courtyards. The villages surround a central building spine that shares administrative spaces, instructional support, and shared core enrichment spaces like indoor play, art, and music.

Many students in Alief do not have access to nature or the benefits it provides for health and academics. An outdoor learning space at the early childhood center provides students an opportunity to safely enjoy time outside and experience the benefits of learning in nature.
The early childhood center has an alternative approach to site development. In lieu of a flat site with Bermuda grass and the city-required landscaping, this site will use low-impact development ideas with sheet flow, bio-swales, pocket prairies and even some reforestation.

Paths and outdoor classrooms throughout the undulating site encourage student and community engagement with nature. Students safely enjoy time outside to explore and play with water, plant, and harvest vegetables in an edible garden, and observe the nature and prairies in their backyard.