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Inside Gallaudet - Gallaudet University
Traditionally, ease of use has played a major role in building design: doorknobs sit at a comfortable level to avoid stooping; stairs provide both tactile and visual cues to make navigation easy.
Some argue that our buildings today are guided more by technology and economy, and have become a stress to our sense of well-being. Design elements like harsh fluorescent lights that save energy, office cubicles that pack workers into tight windowless spaces, and the use of unnatural and sometimes toxic materials are just a few results of this approach.
In the fall of 2008, Gallaudet’s “DeafSpace” class looked at ways to reverse this trend. Toward the end of the semester, the students teamed with a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a weekend summit to identify solutions.
The idea of bringing the two schools together arose when Wendy Jacob, an artist who teaches “Special Problems in Visual Arts—Autism Studio” at MIT, and architect Hansel Bauman, who is teaching “DeafSpace,” found they were tackling similar physical and theoretical puzzles of design. The colleagues believed that their 18 students could learn from each other.
The Gallaudet class, offered through the American Sign Language and Deaf Studies Department, is part of a three-year campus planning and design project known as the DeafSpace Project, which is co-sponsored by Academic Affairs and the Department of Administration and Finance. In this class, students conduct research and propose design solutions for future Gallaudet buildings that better enable and express deaf cognitive, social, and aesthetic sensibilities. The class has focused on designing with all of the senses in mind.
Similarly, students in MIT’s “Autism Studio” are exploring the ways in which the physical environment can resonate with people with autism, a developmental disability that significantly affects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction. The prevalence of disorders in the autism spectrum is on the rise in the United States, and the course sought to create imaginative responses to the autistic experience.
To explore design concepts, the group used the city as its laboratory. On the first night of the November 15 to 16 meeting, they converged at the Vietnam War Memorial on the National Mall. In the chilly evening, they moved through the dark paths and touched the smooth black wall, exploring how they used their senses to conceptualize their surroundings in an unfamiliar place.
Later that weekend, students divided into pairs consisting of one student from Gallaudet and one from MIT. Without interpreters, the partners moved through the Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden, using cameras to communicate.
The discussions and images resulting from the summit offered the participants a new perspective on the interplay between senses, the built environment, and how they communicated with one another. Whether they were hearing, deaf, or hard of hearing, participants could learn from how others saw and experienced the environment.
Through their interactions, the students saw common perspectives emerge. Rather than adapting architecture to “accommodate” individuals with disabilities, the concept of DeafSpace creates a whole new aesthetic to express and foster distinct ways of being. “Deaf Space is not like adding on a prosthetic arm, or adding a wheelchair ramp to a building,” said Robert Sirvage, assistant DeafSpace instructor, “We study the aesthetics of design.” This aesthetic approach offers many new insights about architecture and the processes by which architects go about their work.
The MIT students have a similar philosophy, “DeafSpace” student Summer Crider observed, which helped the groups connect. “During [the MIT students’] presentation, they told us that they spent a large amount of time learning how autistic children see the world, and they molded their architectural projects to the children's comfort level instead of making the autistic children ‘fit’ normal children's activity,” she said. “That was where I think we gained respect and started to really open up and show them our ways of being, how we navigate in this world.”
These approaches mirror the architectural concept of phenomenology, which emphasizes the sensory properties of building materials. “Together, our work at Gallaudet and MIT offers a new model for creating a sensitive way of designing more livable and stimulating environments on a broad scale,” Bauman explained.
Bauman and the Gallaudet students are translating this work into a set of deaf architectural design principles that can be applied to the campus and beyond. Already, students from the DeafSpace Project have generated the basic design concepts for the future Clerc Hall renovation project and continue to advise the project’s design team. More recently, they have met with city planners and developers to propose design ideas that could guide the future of the 6th Street Market area adjacent to Kendall Green.
Students at MIT have played an advisory role to a team of architects in California designing a treatment center for individuals with autism. Other projects that explore different ways of being and perceiving include the development of a "shybot," a small robot device that responds to human facial expression, a series of instruments for visually registering heartbeats and breathing, and work on a computer program that can depict music in full-color visual displays.
"One of MIT's strengths is making ideas tangible and applying them to practice,” Sirvage said. He believes that the MIT emphasis on innovation is a great complement to Gallaudet, which is strong on theoretical thinking and generating ideas.
Future projects from Gallaudet include the use of “public vibration” to design auditoriums and sports venues, allowing people to feel the cheers of fellow audience members or fans through the floor and the seats.
Looking ahead, Bauman and Sirvage envision a DeafSpace Institute where students and researchers from many different institutions can collaborate with design professionals to address design and community development problems. They see applications both on campus and off campus, in the deaf community and beyond.
In the meantime, a Gallaudet delegation will continue the discussion in early 2009, when Bauman, Sirvage, and others will attend a three-day design summit at MIT for another meeting of the minds.
Traditionally, ease of use has played a major role in building design: doorknobs sit at a comfortable level to avoid stooping; stairs provide both tactile and visual cues to make navigation easy.
Some argue that our buildings today are guided more by technology and economy, and have become a stress to our sense of well-being. Design elements like harsh fluorescent lights that save energy, office cubicles that pack workers into tight windowless spaces, and the use of unnatural and sometimes toxic materials are just a few results of this approach.
In the fall of 2008, Gallaudet’s “DeafSpace” class looked at ways to reverse this trend. Toward the end of the semester, the students teamed with a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a weekend summit to identify solutions.
The idea of bringing the two schools together arose when Wendy Jacob, an artist who teaches “Special Problems in Visual Arts—Autism Studio” at MIT, and architect Hansel Bauman, who is teaching “DeafSpace,” found they were tackling similar physical and theoretical puzzles of design. The colleagues believed that their 18 students could learn from each other.
The Gallaudet class, offered through the American Sign Language and Deaf Studies Department, is part of a three-year campus planning and design project known as the DeafSpace Project, which is co-sponsored by Academic Affairs and the Department of Administration and Finance. In this class, students conduct research and propose design solutions for future Gallaudet buildings that better enable and express deaf cognitive, social, and aesthetic sensibilities. The class has focused on designing with all of the senses in mind.
Similarly, students in MIT’s “Autism Studio” are exploring the ways in which the physical environment can resonate with people with autism, a developmental disability that significantly affects verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction. The prevalence of disorders in the autism spectrum is on the rise in the United States, and the course sought to create imaginative responses to the autistic experience.
To explore design concepts, the group used the city as its laboratory. On the first night of the November 15 to 16 meeting, they converged at the Vietnam War Memorial on the National Mall. In the chilly evening, they moved through the dark paths and touched the smooth black wall, exploring how they used their senses to conceptualize their surroundings in an unfamiliar place.
Later that weekend, students divided into pairs consisting of one student from Gallaudet and one from MIT. Without interpreters, the partners moved through the Hirshhorn Museum Sculpture Garden, using cameras to communicate.
The discussions and images resulting from the summit offered the participants a new perspective on the interplay between senses, the built environment, and how they communicated with one another. Whether they were hearing, deaf, or hard of hearing, participants could learn from how others saw and experienced the environment.
Through their interactions, the students saw common perspectives emerge. Rather than adapting architecture to “accommodate” individuals with disabilities, the concept of DeafSpace creates a whole new aesthetic to express and foster distinct ways of being. “Deaf Space is not like adding on a prosthetic arm, or adding a wheelchair ramp to a building,” said Robert Sirvage, assistant DeafSpace instructor, “We study the aesthetics of design.” This aesthetic approach offers many new insights about architecture and the processes by which architects go about their work.
The MIT students have a similar philosophy, “DeafSpace” student Summer Crider observed, which helped the groups connect. “During [the MIT students’] presentation, they told us that they spent a large amount of time learning how autistic children see the world, and they molded their architectural projects to the children's comfort level instead of making the autistic children ‘fit’ normal children's activity,” she said. “That was where I think we gained respect and started to really open up and show them our ways of being, how we navigate in this world.”
These approaches mirror the architectural concept of phenomenology, which emphasizes the sensory properties of building materials. “Together, our work at Gallaudet and MIT offers a new model for creating a sensitive way of designing more livable and stimulating environments on a broad scale,” Bauman explained.
Bauman and the Gallaudet students are translating this work into a set of deaf architectural design principles that can be applied to the campus and beyond. Already, students from the DeafSpace Project have generated the basic design concepts for the future Clerc Hall renovation project and continue to advise the project’s design team. More recently, they have met with city planners and developers to propose design ideas that could guide the future of the 6th Street Market area adjacent to Kendall Green.
Students at MIT have played an advisory role to a team of architects in California designing a treatment center for individuals with autism. Other projects that explore different ways of being and perceiving include the development of a "shybot," a small robot device that responds to human facial expression, a series of instruments for visually registering heartbeats and breathing, and work on a computer program that can depict music in full-color visual displays.
"One of MIT's strengths is making ideas tangible and applying them to practice,” Sirvage said. He believes that the MIT emphasis on innovation is a great complement to Gallaudet, which is strong on theoretical thinking and generating ideas.
Future projects from Gallaudet include the use of “public vibration” to design auditoriums and sports venues, allowing people to feel the cheers of fellow audience members or fans through the floor and the seats.
Looking ahead, Bauman and Sirvage envision a DeafSpace Institute where students and researchers from many different institutions can collaborate with design professionals to address design and community development problems. They see applications both on campus and off campus, in the deaf community and beyond.
In the meantime, a Gallaudet delegation will continue the discussion in early 2009, when Bauman, Sirvage, and others will attend a three-day design summit at MIT for another meeting of the minds.