Hall McKnight has been announced as the winner of the Gallaudet University International Design Competition. This announcement is the culmination of a three-stage design competition which sought to identify the most innovative design team capable of redefining the University’s urban edge as a vibrant, mixed-use, creative and cultural district of Washington DC (USA).

Established in 1864, Gallaudet University is the world’s only liberal arts university in which all programmes and services are designed to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing students. Hall McKnight’s vision was described as offering an accomplished approach, combining poetic qualities with a deep sense of what Gallaudet is, and should be. The winner's approach proceeded from reflections on “meeting, communing, engaging” – the foundations of human communication – and proposed dynamic new spaces, both within the University and between the campus and the city. Hall McKnight sought to create a building that would endure and develop, acting as a “vessel” to be filled with the experiences of its occupants.

The project will feature “DeafSpace” design principles, which are based on the knowledge that the built environment, largely constructed by and for hearing individuals, presents a variety of challenges to which deaf people have responded with a particular way of altering their surroundings to fit their unique ways-of-being. Examples of DeafSpace design elements can be found on the Gallaudet campus in several buildings. This project is the first time these design principles will be incorporated into a public space off the Gallaudet campus.

The runner-up practices were Kennedy & Violich Architecture, Marvel Architects, and MASS Design Group.
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Hall McKnight
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2016
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Washington DC, USA
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Hall McKnight is an architectural practice based in Belfast, led by Alastair Hall and Ian McKnight. In 2008 the practice won the prestigious UK and Ireland ‘Young Architect of the Year Award’ (as Hackett Hall McKnight).

In addition to receiving a number of RIBA Awards, the work of the practice has been recognised with success in International Design Contests, notably the MAC Arts Centre, completed in February 2012 and Vartov Square Copenhagen, completed in Autumn 2012. Hall McKnight were announced as the winners of the RIBA design contest for the Quadrangle Building at King’s College London, Strand Campus in October 2012.

The practice’s work has been nominated for the BSI Swiss Architectural Award, the European Union Mies Van der Rohe Award, the European Public Space Awards and the Design Museum ‘Designs of the Year’. In 2013 the practice received the Downes Medal, awarded by the Architectural Association of Ireland, for the MAC.

The practice has experience of working on a wide range of different building types from houses to large and complex public buildings and landscapes, and has delivered projects in the UK and Europe.

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