Community and Child-Centered Design
Stephen Wise Temple has been a pioneer in education for over five decades. The newly opened Aaron Milken Center represents another transformational step, ensuring a vibrant future for young learners to grow and thrive. “The new campus of the Aaron Milken Center builds on parenting and early childhood education—physically, conceptually, and professionally. It expands, enhances, and enriches efforts to embrace children with the kind of attention and care, with the kind of love, that has everything to do with who they become,” said Lowell Milken.
A thoughtful design maximizes the beautiful hilltop campus, infusing the academic ecosystem with a sense of connection to the natural world. Vibrant interior and exterior spaces foster growth and learning in a nurturing environment designed to welcome children, families, and the greater Stephen Wise community.
Common spaces for gathering provide places for parents to sit with their child in those moments before separating for the day and again after school to share in the day’s events. Unique outdoor spaces include a sensory garden, vegetable gardens, spots for water-sand-mud play, climbing structures, and more.
The completed project incorporates creatively designed classrooms and outdoor experiences that lend themselves to discovery, exploration, and collaborative learning. The sense of wonder fostered in these spaces will positively impact the quality of the students’ work as they move throughout their day.
Inside, classrooms are flooded with natural light via floor to ceiling windows. The design also features a beit midrash, art studio, learning kitchen, library, music room, and social hall, each thoughtfully integrated to inspire curiosity and creativity throughout the school day.
