The 2025 Solar Decathlon team from Georgia Tech (SDGT) consists of 24 students with a range of academic and professional experiences, connecting the Institute’s academic resources and industry network to collaborate with Early Learning Scholars (ELS), a nonprofit preschool, in Clarkston, GA.
Clarkston is the most diverse square mile in the U.S. The city faces several challenges including language barriers, unemployment, and financial struggles. With 14% of Clarkston’s population under the age of 5, childcare costs are a significant factor in affordability for families in the area. To help with this burden, ELS provides subsidized childcare as well as counseling and family assistance, but they have outgrown their current space. SDGT aims to design a campus that will enhance early childhood education, community engagement, and family support, reflecting the organization’s mission to empower families and nurture children in a multicultural environment. Through expansion of the preschool and inclusion of a new community center, the team will address challenges Clarkston faces while supporting the transition to resilient and accessible spaces.
Clarkston is the most diverse square mile in the U.S. The city faces several challenges including language barriers, unemployment, and financial struggles. With 14% of Clarkston’s population under the age of 5, childcare costs are a significant factor in affordability for families in the area. To help with this burden, ELS provides subsidized childcare as well as counseling and family assistance, but they have outgrown their current space. SDGT aims to design a campus that will enhance early childhood education, community engagement, and family support, reflecting the organization’s mission to empower families and nurture children in a multicultural environment. Through expansion of the preschool and inclusion of a new community center, the team will address challenges Clarkston faces while supporting the transition to resilient and accessible spaces.
As an expanded hub of activities in Clarkston, the Phase 2 new construction of the preschool and the retrofit of the existing building for ELS aims to rethink how a preschool can serve a community. This project includes a retrofitted community center that can serve as a resilience hub, a new commercial kitchen, and 5 new classrooms with a focus on simple and efficient systems for energy conservation and cost savings. The team seeks to design with entirely off-the-shelf products to ensure maintenance is simple for the staff while making the system interfaces easy to understand and operate. These changes will allow ELS to be a center not only for preschool or community, but also a living lab for how Clarkston can embrace net-zero and sustainability-focused buildings.
Plans of typical classroom building and the retrofit design
Daylighting analysis of typical classroom and and the retrofit design
