New School for the Deaf opens in Delaware

A bright and spacious new school for the deaf opened this month in Newark, Delaware. The Delaware School for the Deaf has the latest educational technology, green-energy features, and the capacity to serve deaf children from birth to age 21. Having gained a solid background in both the oral and ASL approaches to deaf education from previous projects, Mackey Mitchell served as the consultant to Gaudreau, Inc.to help design the state-of-the-art school. The project includes academic space, along with a full kitchen and cafeteria, library media center, therapy rooms, science, art and drama classrooms, a resource center, offices, and a suite of diagnostic and treatment rooms for hearing, speech, occupational and physical therapy. Mackey Mitchell also designed a separate 22,000GSF residential facility on the same site. This building contains traditional student bedrooms arranged around social and study lounges.  Four separate two-bedroom apartment units are designed for post-secondary students with multiple disabilities including Autism Spectrum Disorder, which are increasingly common in the deaf population, who are making the transition to independent living.  Architects Marcus Adrian, David Helfrich, and Kyle Wagner served as the project team.