The Cummins Engine Company, enlightened patron of the small town of Columbus, decided in 1997 to provide its employees and general public a child caring facility. The one level 22,000 square foot building occupies a corner site in the midst of the Cummins Engine manufacturing campus. Bordered by a well-tended creek to the west and a recently expanded bridge to the north, the site enjoys views, on one side, toward a modest residential neighborhood and, on the other side, to the beautifully landscaped Central Avenue (a work by the legendary American landscape architect, Dan Kiley).

As for the program, the center’s spaces consist of sets of independent modular classrooms, catering to a variety of age groups: from infants to toddlers, from two-year olds to preschoolers. This variety of spaces is structured by a continuous single loaded internal street that echoes the building’s footprint, and creates a protected central playground area. This wedge-shaped central space functions as a courtyard through which natural light is collected and transmitted to each individual classroom through layered interior windows.