http://goo.gl/G9WtGA
Bauman points out the wide entryways that allow signers more room to gesture and the automatic doors that don’t require anyone to stop mid-phrase to grab a handle. In the common room, a large, horseshoe-shaped bench fosters the kind of “conversation circles” in which deaf people feel comfortable. Diffuse natural light makes it easy to follow friends’ and teachers’ signing.
Bauman and Gallaudet have a name for this kind of architecture: DeafSpace.
DeafSpace has made Gallaudet stand out even in a local university scene undergoing a remarkable real-estate boom: George Washington University has been expanding south and east from its Foggy Bottom neighborhood. Georgetown built a sleek new School of Continuing Studies on Massachusetts Avenue near Gallery Place. None, though, is doing as much creative thinking about urban design as Gallaudet.