Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children

Founded in 1947, the Sunshine Cottage School for Deaf Children is a private auditory/oral school for grades K–5. Children learn in an environment in which every design decision was considered for its impact on their ability to hear. Lake Flato designed a campus of five buildings: one administrative, two early-childhood, one elementary, and a parent/infant facility. The campus—with kitchen space, science labs for the elementary and early-childhood wings, an amphitheater, outdoor classrooms, a nature trail, and playing fields—creates a tactile and engaging environment for learning.

In collaboration with Mackey Mitchell Architects.

The facilities include a total of 20 classrooms, a dedicated music and art room, a gymnasium with a full-size basketball court, an occupational therapy room for speech therapists, and three age-appropriate playgrounds.

Applying Universal Design Principles

Acoustically Quiet Environments

Deaf or hard of hearing children spend a large amount of mental energy on listening. To facilitate learning, the design of Sunshine Cottage increases the school environment’s signal-to-noise ratio—in other words, amplifying sounds that mean something (signals) and eliminating those that don’t (noise). Design strategies include siting the building to minimize traffic noise, designing an acoustically tight building envelope, locating mechanical rooms so that they don’t introduce ambient noise into the occupied spaces, and designing the HVAC system with large ducts so that the air moves slowly and quietly inside them. The resulting quiet demonstrates how valuable a great acoustical environment is to everyone.