Modern building with glass and metal exterior, surrounded by trees and a brick building, under a clear blue sky.
Close-up of a modern building exterior with orange, beige, and gray panels and black window frames, surrounded by trees

Lehman College’s Child Care Center minimizes campus disruption during and after construction, and incorporates state-of-the-art sustainability features. A narrow yard between two academic buildings, the project site offered limited breathing room. In order to maximize efficiency, the Child Care Center was fabricated off site, and then set on campus within a single week.

Modern building exterior featuring a covered walkway with a colorful, striped awning, glass windows on the left, green trees, and vintage-style street lamps along the sidewalk.
Empty childcare classroom with small tables and chairs, wooden storage shelves, a whiteboard, and large windows showing trees outside.
Modern interior with red staircase and mezzanine, orange and white flooring, and a small sitting area with red sofa.

To further minimize the building’s footprint, we designed the Child Care Center with centralized internal circulation. This allows side-yard room for a new playground, accommodates foot traffic between the public street and a campus walkway, and creates accessible routes to the adjacent buildings and campus areas. The increased side-yard dimensions provides maximum exposure to natural daylight in the new and existing buildings alike.

Diagram of a building's environmental systems showing air flow, sunlight, and ventilation pathways with arrows indicating airflow and sunlight direction.
Architectural floor plans for a two-story building, with labeled rooms including classrooms, offices, storage, and bathrooms on each floor.
Two young boys on a balcony holding up large cucumbers.
A spacious classroom with large windows showing green trees outside. There are small tables and chairs, a whiteboard, a teacher standing near the back, and two young children sitting at a table playing with toys.
Architectural site plan of a building with landscaped outdoor areas, pathways, trees, and garden spaces.

Client
CUNY

Status
Constructed

Info
2013
Institutional/Modular
12,000 sf
Bronx, NY

Awards
Modular Building Institute’s First Place Award of Distinction, Permanent Modular Education Facility
American School & University, Outstanding Design Award for a Modular Facility

Publications
→ e-Oculus Features Lehman College Child Care Center