Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
This early learning center is the first free-standing public pre-k for the wake county public school system.
The design makes high-quality, public early education accessible to all families by improving outcomes for young children, including food security, emotional support, academic support, and access to nature.
Wake county public school system pre-k center by katherine hogan architects, received an 2025 american architecture honourable mention from the chicago athenaeum: museum of architecture and design.
The goal of creating a positive, safe, and welcoming environment for all children emerged from the nc governor’s early childhood action plan. As the county’s first freestanding public pre-k, the outcome was critical for future projects.
Insight from teachers, staff, and planners informed every aspect of the design. The design makes high-quality, public early education accessible to all families.
Vibrant apertures emerge from the roof to provide access to ample natural light- allowing each classroom to change throughout the day. Shared learning spaces build community by enabling children to engage, learn, and discover the beauty and lessons of nature.
This public school pre-k center provides multiple benefits across the triple bottom line. It offers access to high-quality early education, food security, emotional support, and academic support.
This building is a true collaboration with early learning educators, designed with feedback from and to support the work of early childhood educators and students. It will impact the children many years beyond the foundations of their pre-k education.
The early learning center serves the county public school system and strives to make high-quality early education accessible to the entire county.
A thorough study determined the location of the building to identify the highest area of need in the county to provide early education to title 1 students.
The center serves multiple needs beyond early education, including food security, emotional support, early identification of student support needs, and a safe, nurturing environment.
The design team worked closely with the head of early learning, teaching staff, and stakeholders to design a new county prototype tailored to early learning instructional needs.
In addition to the classrooms, there are evaluation rooms, spaces for speech therapists and teaching specialists, and a movement room for indoor active play.
Vibrant apertures emerge from the roof to provide access to ample natural light- allowing each classroom to change throughout the day. Shared learning spaces build community by enabling children to engage, learn, and discover the beauty and lessons of nature.
The plan form is generated by requiring each classroom to have direct access to the outdoor play area. This allows the teachers and students to spend ample time outdoors and encourages the early learning pedagogy to extend to the landscape and nature.
The classrooms are designed in pods, each with a bathroom and a shared observation room, a key program component.
A ninth classroom space is used as an evaluation room for new students to be evaluated in a classroom environment so the teachers and staff can identify any additional needs and support for the student to be successful.
Each space is unique yet part of a community where children engage, learn, and discover the beauty and lessons of nature. The fifth façade of the classrooms, a unique skylight, is informed by the necessity of classroom walls for learning materials.
The uniquely colored apertures emerge from the roof to provide access to ample natural light.
Every classroom will change throughout the day with skylights shaped by the agency of natural light, reflecting the movement of time and nature and enhancing their learning environment.
A space-saving advantage was sharing the existing cafeteria space of the elementary school, which is co-located on the campus. Co-locating on the same campus was a cost-saving measure, allowing more instructional space.
The food is prepared in the elementary school kitchen and distributed to all pre-k classrooms for breakfast and lunch.
Another project goal was to enhance the existing campus and not only build a new building but also improve the campus overall for every student and teacher.
Contaminated buildings were removed from the site, and new playgrounds and playfields were constructed for the elementary students. A new wetland was installed on the campus to manage 100% of the stormwater on-site.
This wetland is a unique teaching opportunity on a public-school campus used by all elementary school grades. The school is an environmental education-based magnet school, and the proximity to a wetland provides expanded teaching and outdoor learning methods.
Project: Wake County Public School System Pre-K Center
Architects: Katherine Hogan Architects
Design Team: Katherine Hogan & Vincent Petrarca
Landscape Architects: Clh Design
General Contractor: Cooper Tacia
Client: Wake County Public School System
Photographer: Tzu Chen Photography
