Meeting the Challenge
It’s challenging enough being a middle school student; the last thing teenagers want is to be singled out as different. And, the last thing officials at The Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind want is to single out their students as different. When they hired Ebert Norman Brady Architects and general contractor Batson-Cook to update and remodel the McLane Hall dormitory, they asked for a building that served students with challengesin this case hearing-impaired middle school boysbut looked and felt as if it was used by students who weren’t challenged.
"They try and treat the students normally, acclimate them to the real world," says Dobbie John, project manager for Batson-Cook. One of the functions of the school is to not only get [students] an education through high school, but have them function in a world where everything is not dedicated to the handicapped. The idea is to not let the kids become dependant on their handicap.
| PROJECT DATA Architect: Ebert Norman Brady Architects Construction Manager: Batson-Cook Company Owner: Florida School for the Deaf & the Blind Completed: May 8, 2003 |
And, that’s how the finished 21,000-square-foot building now functions. The $3.15 million remodel captures the spirit of the original 1927 building while addressing universal needs, according to architect Tom Norman, partner in charge at Ebert Norman Brady. Its current occupants, 6th to 8th grade hearing-impaired boys, benefit from the modernization, but so would any student population.
The building had to be designed to assume it would not always be occupied by hearing impaired students, says Norman. You had to assume the possibility existed that you might have sight-impaired students as well. Any project you do on campus can’t be disability specific; you have to design for the deaf and the blind.
The School
Founded in 1885, the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind occupies 70 acres in St. Augustine, Fla., one of the country’s oldest cities. The property, which is frequently described as elegant and beautiful, borders the Intercoastal Waterway. Students from throughout Florida attend the school, arriving on campus Sunday afternoon and staying through Friday afternoon. The campus is divided into two parts that are very distinct, says Norman. One half of the campus consists of buildings constructed in the early 1900s while the other half has buildings from the 1950s and 60s. The Spanish-Mediterranean-style McLane Hall, built in 1927 and expanded in 1935, is found in the older section and faces a sister building.
Already in use as a dormitory, the building was in good shape structurally, but had just gotten old, explains John.
They needed to update all the electrical, mechanical, and plumbing, and make modifications for handicapped accessibility.
The building’s floor plan also needed to be reconfiguredprevious alterations to the floor plan were illogical in their layout, according to Norman. The program, therefore, seemed pretty straightforward: do remedial work on the exterior, redesign the interior creating an intuitive floor plan with space for 64 students, add living and dining areas, include administrative space, and update the building’s mechanicals. The team was even given a generous 20 months to complete the work because they would be forced to work around the students. A shortage of dormitory space required some students live in McLane Hall during the renovation.
Time and Effort
It turns out the team didn’t need almost two years and the project was accelerated to 12 monthsand they still finished ahead of schedule. From his perspective, Norman says the designs were created relatively quickly.
We had an idea looking at the existing building about how we could do it. It was pretty straightforward if you look at the original plans, how they laid it out.
And, from the construction perspective, John said he helped accelerate the schedule early on, after seeing the conceptual drawings.
The early work authorization was that we do the demolition right off so that we could incorporate whatever we found into the building, says John. Whenever you do demolition of this sort, there’s always the unforeseen, so we try and take care of a lot of that by doing the demolition early on and having the architect incorporate that into the final set of construction documents. This way we don’t have any outrageous change orders when they find a column in the middle of a hallway or something like that.
About the biggest problem the team encountered were deteriorated concrete slabs and support columns in the building’s crawlspace. The reinforcing bars were corroded but they were quickly repaired.
As for working around the students, while it was suggested that all students be moved, the school was unable to relocate them. The building also lent itself nicely to being split in half. A fire-rated wall separated the two halves and utilities for the occupied half were isolated. With students in class from about 8:00 am to 3:00 pm, John’s team took advantage of the empty building and did as much of the heavy and intrusive work as possible to avoid disturbing the students. They also took advantage of the summer break and the Christmas holiday to do major demolition.
Demolition is really the biggest thing that can disturb the students throughout the school year and that really disturbs the whole flow of the student population. It really interrupts them, explains John.
To keep the construction site safe, construction fencing enclosing the site was fitted with wooden planks running along the base to orient visually-impaired students reliant on walking sticks.
Exterior and Interior Work
The project required very little in the way of exterior work. The building has a barrel tile clay roof that was in excellent shape; the only work needed was to cover the new elevator tower. Exterior work also involved restoring and waterproofing the exterior stucco; cleaning and resealing all the original stonework; and repairing, cleaning, and tuck-pointing the brick water table detail.
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| Safety features in the kitchen include knobs on the front of the stove and heating trays. |
Work inside the two-story dormitory was much more extensive, although the layout is very straightforward, dictated in large part by existing window locations and its symmetrical I-shape footprint.
The existing windows indicated the implementation of dorm rooms, and at the ends, the building gets wider so that’s the area where we put the family room, kitchen, and dining room, says Norman.
A central entrance with a new elevator occupies the middle of the building with each living space a mirror reverse of the other. Each floor has two kitchens, two dining areas, two living areas, two group bathrooms, eight double-occupancy dorm rooms, and two rooms for attendantsor house mothers.
They are middle school kids, so I don’t think you want to leave them by themselves too long, says John, explaining the need for house mothers. They’re very normal in that aspect where they can get into trouble very easily.
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| The school has a cafeteria, but dinners are eaten in the dormitories. The blue curtains and floor tiles reflect period colors used at the time McLane hall was built in 1927. |
The kitchen and dining areas were given special consideration because that’s where students take their evening meals and also because that’s where a lot of accidents can occur. Even though the building was designed to create as normal a living environment as possible, equipment accommodates the students’ special needs. Knobs are on the front of the stove and warming trays so students don’t have to reach across hot burners.
As an architect, what I try to do is, when specifying these materials and equipment, just be logical about it. There are a lot of details you really do have to think through. There’s a lot of stuff that has to do with the safety of the kinds, says Norman.
Other safety features include full ADA-compliance throughout the facility, door bells connected to flashing lights, strobe lights in each room indicating an emergency, fire suppression, fire-rated doors, and a new messaging board system in the living areas that’s connected to the school’s central security system to worn of severe storms or other hazardous conditions.
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Product Data Construction Materials Carpet and Flooring Lighting Security/Fire Safety Washroom Equipment/ Supplies Physical Education Equipment Office Equipment & Systems HVAC/Controls Miscellaneous |
Safety and security features weren’t the only mechanicals added to the building. HVAC, electrical, and plumbing components were worked on and the building was tied into the campus’s chilled and hot water loop. They also had to reroute the schools’ fiber-optic line because it ran through the building.
Adding all that equipment to an existing building isn’t easily accomplished because it can be difficult to hide and mar the interior design. New decorative soffets camouflage the equipment, but are details consistent with the original building. In fact, Norman reintroduced a host of details and elements original to the building.
When we went in and started doing original drawings for the building, we took down some ceilings and noticed the original building had these beautiful archways. Whoever came in there last time and dropped the ceilings totally disrespected the original design intent. We looked at that as a cue to reintroduce some of the original design elements that made the building special, says Norman. Also, when you’re looking down the long corridor, it’s a really good way to break up the bowling alley affect.
Even the interior’s blue color palate is authentic to the building’s time period. It was really an effort in trying to respect what was there at one time. We originally had green tones, which are pretty prevalent throughout the school, but school administrators didn’t want another green. They preferred the period colors.
The Value of Normal
Shaving eight months off the construction timeframe saved the school a significant amount of money. We did a lot of work early on to make sure we stayed in budget, says John. By finishing early, we saved $200,000 and that’s $200,000 you can put right back into the project. That’s a lot of money the school can use to help its students live normal lives.