Cora Whitley Family Center

Cora Whitley Family Center

Tacoma, WA

The Cora Whitley Family Center is a new 32,500 SF building for the Multicultural Child + Family Hope Center, a nonprofit human services agency in Tacoma. Their mission is to provide culturally relevant support services to children and families through daycare, ECEAP, Head Start, and DSHS contracted services. The new facility will house all of these offerings under one roof and continue to expand its programs from infant care through before- and after-school services. The center focuses on building positive relationships between teachers and students to build a child’s social, emotional, and academic development.

The structure consists of wood-framed construction to minimize construction costs. Open web combination wood and steel floor trusses span the open classroom spaces, utilizing the corridor for bearing. This design enables minimalistic framing that can be quickly erected while allowing maximum flexibility with classroom layout. Similarly, the roof framing consists of standard premanufactured trusses. The exception to this occurs in the gymnasium, where a custom glulam timber truss clearspans the space, which supports parallel chord open web combination wood and steel trusses. This design provides an open gymnasium space with maximum height. The custom truss will also be exposed, leading to a nice aesthetic.