SPECIAL NEEDS PROJECTS
Vision Bermuda
Hamilton, Bermuda
Renovation & Expansion
Size: 5,000 sf
Cost: $500,000
Project Highlights:
Vision Bermuda is a renovated and expanded facility for the blind in the city of Hamilton, Bermuda. The design evolves from the “member centric” philosophy of the Board of Directors to create a place where the visitors are made to feel like it is their home. The facility provides orientation and mobility assessments, social gathering space, private listening stations for reading mail, a model kitchen to teach a variety of techniques and aides, a seminar room, offices and appliance displays. The DKA design required a rigorous site plan approval process and collaboration with a team of staff, vision rehabilitation specialists and users. The site was designed to teach outdoor mobility and create a children’s communal area.
Virginia Rehabilitation Center
for the Blind and Vision Impaired
Richmond, Virginia
Addition & Renovations
Size: 23,800 sf
Cost: $3,200,000
Construction Schedule: 12 Months
Project Highlights:
The Administration/Activities Building is located at the Virginia Rehabilitation Center for the Blind & Vision Impaired in Richmond. The center teaches individuals with vision loss strategies and skills to adapt to living without sight, or ways to use partial sight more effectively. The project involved the major renovation of the existing 1970 building, and two small additions. The renovation included a completely new interior, a new roof,
upgraded windows, and new mechanical, plumbing, and electrical systems. Additionally the renovated facility offers a new central sky-lit atrium that channels light and openness into interior classrooms and offices.
St. Josephs School for the Blind
Jersey City, New Jersey
Adaptive Re-Use
Size: 14,500 sf
Cost: $3,300,000
Construction Schedule: 20 Months
Project Highlights:
Providing both long and short term care to deaf & blind students, this 17 bed facility meets all standards of the Department of Health as an I-2 Use Group. All Bedrooms, even singles, are sized and approved for double beds and can be easily converted back and forth. The architecture and interior design services coordinating details such as the valance heights and shape to minimize things that can be grabbed in a moment of rage; even
the radiators are built-in under the windows to reduce the amount of projections in the room. Many of the students of this facility have multiple handicaps or emotional adjustment concerns.
Universal Accessibility
Design Guidelines
Rutgers University
Project Highlights:
As specialists in the design for the blind and physically handicapped, Dennis Kowal Architects prepared guidelines beyond the dimensions and diagrams of the Americans with Disabilities Act. While the ADA guidelines show opening sizes, clearances, and heights, the new Universal Guidelines link the accessible locations together to provide a clear, continuous and obvious pathway of travel. It addresses the leading principals when two directives conflict and establishes a hierarchy of improvements.