The Texas School for the Deaf has been a state institution for over 160 years. Today, the residential school provides educational services to more than 500 hearing-impaired and multi-handicapped pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students. It is the oldest continuously operated public school in the state.

In the 1980s, the State Legislature had planned to move the campus to the outskirts of town where it would be out of sight and out of mind. Disgracefully neglected, the campus had deteriorated significantly. BGKA championed the cause of preserving the central Austin historic campus and earned its first major commission, transforming the 65-acre campus.

Over 160 years after its founding, the campus is in the heart of Austin’s urban fabric and is sacred ground for the deaf community, holding historic and emotional significance. The school is a home away from home to residential and day students from across Texas.

Our work at Texas School for the Deaf was the proving ground for BGKA’s collaborative process, employing stakeholders and users as important expert consultants and working hand-in-hand to create architecture in support of deaf education. Fueled by the shared values of the entire team, BGKA created a vibrant urban campus that addresses the changing nature and needs of its users as they grow from kindergarten through high school, while maintaining the cohesiveness of the campus community. This approach confirmed our belief that meaningful collaboration is inherently generative and even risky, but always rewarding. The act of collaboration is an important component to innovation.

The project took nearly twenty years and created 22 new buildings, 250,000 renovated square feet, and five phases of construction. What was once an eyesore—a campus in danger of being closed—has become a beloved home away from home for deaf and special needs children in Texas as well as a place for students to receive caring services and find outstanding facilities.

By learning to design with “deaf eyes,” the BGKA team came to understand the users and was able to work using a completely new set of sensibilities and priorities. The project developed important innovations and new concepts for deaf education and prototypes for designing for the deaf and multi-handicapped including visual lines of sight, wide walkways to accommodate groups walking and signing to each other, unique instructional set-ups, visual alarms, integration of technology, uncluttered backdrops of monochromatic paints, tiles and finishes providing contrast between room and occupant so hands and facial expressions can be clearly seen and strategic placement of natural light sources combined with artificial light to provide good visibility.

Graphic standards and guidelines developed at the Texas School for the Deaf became prototypes for other architects designing for the deaf. This includes a model for delivering deaf education including classrooms for special needs children, pre-kindergarten and elementary, middle school and high school students based on 5:1 – 9:1 student to teacher ratios that promote the exchange of ideas in settings more intimate than conventional classrooms. Each teaching space was outfitted with custom four-color visual “bells” for notifications and alarms. Lights on dimmers and flexible window shades allowing students to adjust illumination during the day to enhance visual communication. Custom classroom furniture such as rounded tables and removable movable chairs to facilitate sign language communication while seated in a semi-circle.

On the Schools eastern edge, BGKA envisioned the opportunity to connect the school with the community and Congress Avenue by creating a streetscape walkway with a transit stop, 800 feet of additional street parking, and landscape amenities that could be enjoyed by all. Bringing together the State of Texas (which owns the school), the City of Austin (which owns the sidewalk), and Capital Metro (which owns the transit stop) BGKA filled a glaring need, bringing separate and seemingly unrelated entities together to fund a transformative project that benefits each individually and the community collectively.

Once an outsider to the deaf and special needs community, BGKA became a trusted friend, dedicated to understanding, documenting, and translating in order to create a place that has become a tribute to the school’s long and storied history. Since the campus’ completion in 2003, the surrounding neighborhood has been revitalized and property values have risen, and the school has grown with students and reputation and is recognized within the deaf education community as an international model for deaf education. The school is part of the surrounding eclectic business community, whose merchants frequently interact with students on and off campus. The project has been recognized with an Architecture Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects, the American Association of School Administrators, the Council of Educational Planners and the named by the Austin Business Journal as Design Winner of the Best Real Estate Award. BGKA earned AIA Austin Firm of the Year award, recognizing almost two decades of work on this community landmark.