HEAD START CENTER DESIGN GUIDE

This chapter describes the purpose of the guide, its organization, the intended audience, and how the information can be applied. It also contains a glossary of terms, helpful web sites, and documents that readers may use for reference.

1.1 Purpose of the Guide

This design guide contains suggested criteria for planning, designing, and renovating Head Start centers. The content is based on the U.S. General Services Administration's Child Care Center Design Guide, PBS-P140, which was intended for use in developing GSA child care centers and expanding or renovating existing ones. The material contained in this GSA guide is useful and applicable in designing Head Start centers, and it has been revised with those centers in mind. However, designers must be sensitive to the wide variety of Head Start centers and the fact that they must be designed to accommodate diverse populations and classroom sizes.

The objective of this guide is to promote centers that are safe, child-oriented, developmentally appropriate, beautiful, environmentally sensitive, and functional. GSA has noted that children may be in a center up to 12,500 hours, if they start as infants and continue until entering school. The design of spaces for their use is important to their well being.

The design should allow for and be sensitive to the differences in space attributes for children and adults, as well as the differences in space usage by children in different age groups. Information about the characteristics and activities of children is included in this document to provide rationale for aspects of design. The recommendations set forth in the guide are intended to establish optimal design, and the guide provides a discussion of issues that affect design to set the benchmark.