The Tenderloin Childcare Center serves 72 children from homeless and formerly homeless families. It offers all-day care, meals and support services for infants, toddlers/pre-schoolers under five, and their families. The building, a conversion of a former boxing gymnasium, houses core educational space, parent resource rooms, counseling spaces, a rooftop garden and play area, and an interior recreation room. The approach toward the project encompassed a feeling of security, shelter and respite from the stresses of family life in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.