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New Gallaudet center is eco- and student friendly - Washington Business Journal:
When Gallaudet University in D.C. talked to architects at SmithGroup JJR LLC in June 2005 about the proposed James Lee Sorenson Language and Communications Center, the university had two major design imperatives.
For one, the building should be certified through the U.S. Green Building Council’s program for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). In addition, because Gallaudet is a school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, the design must maximize highly visual interactive spaces.
Thankfully, the architects found the two qualifications were not mutually exclusive.
“Deaf people inhabit a highly visual world, so clear visual access is necessary to understand and navigate through a building,” said Greg Mella, a SmithGroup principal. “The deaf aesthetic principles created by Gallaudet naturally lent themselves to a sustainable design approach.”
The $22.2 million, 87,000-square-foot center, which opened in September, is the first LEED building on the campus.
To keep the two design goals in perspective throughout the project, SmithGroup brought on deaf architect George Balsley as a consultant.
“Designing with and for the deaf was an incredible learning experience,” Mella said. “The planning process for the center was initiated with a series of workshops with participation from diverse stakeholders, including deaf and hearing individuals, to establish priorities and deaf aesthetic principles. The sessions determined the principles of space, light, form, composition and materiality that then facilitated decision-making during the design process.”
One major challenge was finding a way to incorporate the green concept of ample natural light while being mindful that excessive light and glare can impede sign language communication and cause visual fatigue for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
The project used light-filtering effects such as ceramic frit patterns on some of the glass to create soft light and maintain visual connections, which had the added benefit of reducing heat gain in the building.
“For the majority of spaces, we used combination direct/indirect [light] sources whenever possible in an array of mountings including recessed, pendant and wall mount,” Mella said. “The goal was to promote uniformity so that the perceived level of brightness was increased without the unwanted glare or hot spots or dark patches associated with direct lighting sources.”
Because many Gallaudet students are not completely deaf, SmithGroup worked with an acoustical consultant to set up interior spaces that provide speech clarity and privacy to hard-of-hearing students and minimize low-frequency sound and breakout noise.
Meanwhile, to fulfill the project’s green mission, dual-flush toilets and waterless urinals dropped water consumption 35 percent below the amount for a conventional classroom building.
Other energy savings came from installing T-5 light sources, incorporating an economizer cycle into the air handlers to draw more outside air during cooler weather, building deep porches and designing a curved balcony that doubles as a solar shading feature for the classroom wing.
The project also utilizes some more unusual eco-friendly materials, such as color resin panels that resemble stained glass, made of 40 percent recycled PET, a plastic product, and zinc cladding, a highly recyclable material, which was used on the exterior.
The Sorenson building houses Gallaudet’s Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning, as well as several educational departments. It also includes a student media center, video relay service booths and the hearing and speech center.
When Gallaudet University in D.C. talked to architects at SmithGroup JJR LLC in June 2005 about the proposed James Lee Sorenson Language and Communications Center, the university had two major design imperatives.
For one, the building should be certified through the U.S. Green Building Council’s program for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). In addition, because Gallaudet is a school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, the design must maximize highly visual interactive spaces.
Thankfully, the architects found the two qualifications were not mutually exclusive.
“Deaf people inhabit a highly visual world, so clear visual access is necessary to understand and navigate through a building,” said Greg Mella, a SmithGroup principal. “The deaf aesthetic principles created by Gallaudet naturally lent themselves to a sustainable design approach.”
The $22.2 million, 87,000-square-foot center, which opened in September, is the first LEED building on the campus.
To keep the two design goals in perspective throughout the project, SmithGroup brought on deaf architect George Balsley as a consultant.
“Designing with and for the deaf was an incredible learning experience,” Mella said. “The planning process for the center was initiated with a series of workshops with participation from diverse stakeholders, including deaf and hearing individuals, to establish priorities and deaf aesthetic principles. The sessions determined the principles of space, light, form, composition and materiality that then facilitated decision-making during the design process.”
One major challenge was finding a way to incorporate the green concept of ample natural light while being mindful that excessive light and glare can impede sign language communication and cause visual fatigue for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
The project used light-filtering effects such as ceramic frit patterns on some of the glass to create soft light and maintain visual connections, which had the added benefit of reducing heat gain in the building.
“For the majority of spaces, we used combination direct/indirect [light] sources whenever possible in an array of mountings including recessed, pendant and wall mount,” Mella said. “The goal was to promote uniformity so that the perceived level of brightness was increased without the unwanted glare or hot spots or dark patches associated with direct lighting sources.”
Because many Gallaudet students are not completely deaf, SmithGroup worked with an acoustical consultant to set up interior spaces that provide speech clarity and privacy to hard-of-hearing students and minimize low-frequency sound and breakout noise.
Meanwhile, to fulfill the project’s green mission, dual-flush toilets and waterless urinals dropped water consumption 35 percent below the amount for a conventional classroom building.
Other energy savings came from installing T-5 light sources, incorporating an economizer cycle into the air handlers to draw more outside air during cooler weather, building deep porches and designing a curved balcony that doubles as a solar shading feature for the classroom wing.
The project also utilizes some more unusual eco-friendly materials, such as color resin panels that resemble stained glass, made of 40 percent recycled PET, a plastic product, and zinc cladding, a highly recyclable material, which was used on the exterior.
The Sorenson building houses Gallaudet’s Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning, as well as several educational departments. It also includes a student media center, video relay service booths and the hearing and speech center.