Head Start Child Care Centers  1974 - Present

Ted Hoffman has designed over 40 Head Start and Early Head Start Child Care Centers over the past 44 years. Beginning in 1974 with his, and his partner at the time, Gordon Gilbert's first commission- to convert an existing badly cared for pair of buildings at the South Dade Labor Camp into the then nascent organization, RCMA's, first ever new center for farmworker children. 

Mr Hoffman's main philosophy in all his Head Start experience is to create not only safe, appropriate, and licensable space but also to make the spaces bright, hopeful, and welcoming.

Working mainly with two large central agencies, RCMA, and the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, Mr Hoffman has built with conventional construction, modulars, renovated existing buildings, and a combination of all building types.

Head Start Centers are a specialized building type, much different than private sector day care centers, even high end for -profit operations. For one thing, Head Start Centers are not just baby sitting endeavors but a whole panoply that looks at the whole child experience: learning, playing, social and intellectual development. 

Located in mostly rural areas usually near where farmworkers live, especially the migrant centers which are open for about 6 to 8 months a year, Heas Start Centers become more than a place for farmworker children, they become a symbol, a safe place where, unlike in most parts of the United States where they travel, a place that respects their work and family culture. They are a beacon for families that desperately need one.

Mr Hoffman and his staff spend a great deal of time working on the interiors of the centers to make them bright open and creative. And especially the space created by the placing of buildings. This negative space becomes a gathering and organizing element that ties everything together.