Woolston Family Center
The Woolston Child and Family Center (North Philadelphia, PA) is a transformation of a vacant church into a vibrant child care and family education center. This once empty space is now full of active children and parents coming to learn.
The design of Woolston Child and Family Center is featured in the book, EXPANDING ARCHITECTURE, edited by Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford, as an example of how to adapt an underutilized place of worship to be a vibrant community hub–engaging residents of all ages.
The first phase of construction was the renovation ofthe ground floor of the East Baptist Church to accommodate four accessible child care classrooms, a full-service kitchen for serving hot meals to the children, and office space.
The second phase of construction maintains the open character of the large second floor volume of space with its cathedral ceiling while still providing functional office space for 22 staff and classroom space for 54 children.
Sub-spaces layered within the large open space include: a computer lab, an art classroom, a kitchenette, a resource room, a younger school-age classroom which is also used as a parent/child playgroup space, and a room used both as a classroom for school-age children and as space for adult workshops