Sponsor: Gallaudet University; The JBG Companies
Organizer: Malcolm Reading Consultants
Location: Washington, DC
Type: RFQ, 2-stage, international
Languages: English
Project Budget: $60 million
Awards: An honorarium of $50,000 U.S. dollars will be awarded to each of the shortlisted teams following selection of the winner.
RFQ Deadline: 1st October 2015
Design Challenge:
The two-stage design competition seeks an outstanding multidisciplinary design team to create a new campus gateway and redefine the University’s urban edge as a vibrant, mixed-use, creative and cultural district.Â
The $60M public realm-focused project is expected to be delivered in multiple phases. The project will position Gallaudet’s campus and its surrounding community as a focal point for the U.S. capital’s newly emerging creative economy.Â
Gallaudet University is the only bilingual liberal arts university in the world where academic and research programs for deaf and hard of hearing students are conducted in both American Sign Language (ASL) and English. An internationally-recognized center for Deaf Culture, Gallaudet is at the center of an emerging renaissance known as Deaf Gain: a paradigm shift that switches the emphasis from hearing loss to the cultural, creative and cognitive gains of deaf ways of being in the world (see notes to editors).
The historic core of the University’s campus was originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (known for New York’s Central Park) in 1866. Gallaudet is immediately adjacent to some of Washington, D.C.’s, fastest-growing and most dynamic mixed-use neighborhoods, and is less than two miles northeast of the U.S. Capitol Building.
As well as reaching out to international designers, the competition will also be asking for ideas, insights and inspirations from the Gallaudet community, and supporters, both stateside and internationally, through the Shape Gallaudet initiative. The best insights will be incorporated in the briefing to shortlisted design teams at the beginning of the competition’s second stage. The competition will be the first time DeafSpace Guidelines, developed at Gallaudet, will be applied to the public realm
For more information, go to: https://competitions.malcolmreading.co.uk/gallaudet
