Gallaudet Kicks off Building Campaign with New Dorm

Opening this week will be a special building at Gallaudet University, a $16 million dormitory, designed by deaf students, for deaf students.  The new dorm is the first of a series of buildings to debut at the school for the deaf, and may even lead to national guidelines for deaf-friendly design and construction.

Creating a building to be used exclusively by deaf people has unique challenges, said Jeffrey Luker, chief architect with Quinn Evans, architect of record on the project.  Design needs include wider hallways, more open space, and doors that open automatically so that conversations aren't interrupted having to turn knobs or push handles.  Designers also had to concentrate on visual stimulation and light intrusion to maximize signing, giving a new dimension to interior design.

Gallaudet is now preparing its 10-year campus plan to submit to the DC Zoning Commission; its ambitious design is for at least a half dozen new buildings incorporating the same design guidelines that make spaces more livable and conducive to conversation, according to Hansel Bauman, Director of Campus Design & Planning for Gallaudet.  Bauman said that while design catering to the deaf is not a new concept, it is constantly reinvented.  Bauman instead intends to develop a set of guidelines based on this experience to benefit national design initiatives.

Bauman, an architect by training, highlights the use of color and light as extremely important.  "This is a visually centered environment, you are communicating visually - largely a signing environment - and that's important to understand from an architectural perspective because the building becomes a communications vehicle."  He notes that deaf people are constantly surveying the environment and people around them and need proper light without confusing visuals that would go unnoticed by most audiences.  Bauman points to mini-blinds, ubiquitous throughout the campus, that create a "vibration" as a background when you visually study someone signing in front of them.  "You have an extraordinary amount of visual activity."

"The visual noise of the architecture needs to be modulated well.  Traditional lighting is in a room with a high contrast of dark and light...what we try to do is create an environment with a much more muted, diffused light," says Bauman.  As for colors: "try to pick hues that contrast human skin tones with saturated colors" to set of uses of rooms.  "Walking aisles need to be easy to navigate, then you tend to focus less on navigation than on conversation."

Architect Jeffrey Luker adds further that "visual cues are very important when you're deaf. You need to be able to pick up those cues quickly when you're walking."  Space is key, he said. "There's a preference in deaf communities that there not be walls. You need clear sight lines. One of the advantages is that with deaf people you can communicate at long distances. There's no disruption, its just visual...To the extent possible we've tried to put in place these guidelines into this building."

The building is the first new dorm in the university's plan to renew its housing stock.  The 85,000 square foot building will have two floors of offices and workspace on the first floor, and four floors of open dormitories with 175 beds where some of the university's 1870 students can sign across halls and floors.

"You can sign almost one hundred yards away with someone, or have a conversation with someone in a second floor dorm while you're the courtyard, without bothering anyone else," says Luker. "We've gotten our expertise in deaf space design from Gallaudet itself.  Deaf students are part of the design, every step of the design we've tested with the deaf community."

Because of the school's specialized focus, it foresees only modest growth in the student population, but Bauman sees a need to replace its aging building stock with replacements designed to assist and appeal to the deaf population.  The school also owns 4 acres next door at the Union Market site, currently used as a parking lot, but has no current plans to incorporate that into the Campus Plan or sell to Union Market's developer.

The new dorm comes as the area begins to enjoy a renaissance, with H Street booming - first in nightlife and now in residential construction - and the ever-imminent trolley line getting closer, MRP is beginning their transformative project next door, and now Union Market is opening as a restaurant destination.   Sigal Construction built the dormitory.

Washington D.C. real estate development news.  Photos credit Gallaudet University.

DC’s Newest Development District is…the Florida Avenue Market?

Just around the corner from the ongoing revitalization effort that is NoMa, the Office of Planning (OP) is setting its sights on a similarly minded redevelopment initiative: transforming DC’s wholesaler haven, the Florida Avenue Market, into a “vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood that protects the look and feel of the historic retail markets” while also bring new residential, retail and office projects to the Northeast site.

With the aid of CORE Architecture and Design, EHT Traceries, Inc. and Economic Research Associates, OP released their findings on just how to achieve that seemingly insurmountable task (the surrounding area includes two of the District’s most notorious neighborhoods: Trinidad and Ivy City) late last month in the Florida Avenue Market Small Area Plan. The report details an impressive list of obstacles in the way of redevelopment – even for a city with as many impressive redevelopment challenges as Washington.

Though the crime rate in the surrounding communities goes unmentioned, here’s what OP sees as its primary concerns. Firstly, current zoning statutes prohibit residential development in the industrial zone - a problem that two nearby developments, the Washington Gateway and the Gateway Market and Residences, have been able to circumvent through the PUD process. Secondly, the Market area is comprised of 120 lots with 68 different owners – a ratio that will make acquisition by the city a costly, confusing and time consuming proposition. Lastly, of those lots, many are, in the words of OP, “underdeveloped” or vacant, which gives potential developers little or nothing to work with.

However, OP hopes to relieve that burden somewhat with their framework for potential redevelopment. Taking into account the site’s historic significance (the Center Market first opened in 1802; the flagship Union Terminal Market in 1928), current conditions and infrastructure, current economic and real estate analyses, and community input – “achieved through a series of community planning sessions, property ownership workshops, and through an Advisory Committee” that included City Councilmembers Tommy Wells and Harry Thomas, Jr., the ANCs 5 and 6, Gallaudet University, and Apollo Development – OP has arrived at a preferred mix of commercial and residential uses for the market area (pictured). In an ideal scenario, the Florida Avenue Market will become a new destination by linking NoMa, the New York/Florida Avenue Metro and the neighboring Gallaudet campus into cohesive, walkable and, yes, friendly, whole.

To that effect, the plan outlines extensive overhauls for each prime thoroughfare in the Market area - including the to-be-reopened 3^rd Street – with rehabilitated historic buildings, public parks, new signage and linkage to the Metropolitan Branch Trail. All of this would be done according to “Deaf Design Space principles,” in order to make the area welcoming for Gallaudet’s 1500 strong student population. Sound like a challenge? It will be, but OP hopes to relieve some of the burden from developers by encouraging a 20% tax credit towards the renovation of historic buildings on site.

Presumably to fill in the many remaining question marks (and gear up for an oncoming onslaught of RFPs), OP will be hosting a “Mayoral Hearing” concerning the Market on May 18, 2009 from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM at Gallaudet’s Merrill Learning Center Building . The meeting will be open to the public - with questions and comments on the Area Plan encouraged. OP’s two-part plan for the Market can be read in its entirety here.