Alan Dunlop has completed a detailed design brief, draft design and study for the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children in Sydney, New South Wales. On a site of great interest at Macquarie University campus. The five schools were for children and young people who are deaf and blind or with acute vision and hearing loss and cognitive impairment. Many of the pupils also have physical impairment and require electric wheelchair and mobility assistance. The schools required an enhanced teaching and working relationship, similar to Hazelwood School with secure access to outdoor garden and teaching spaces and separate playgrounds, that includes provision for bikes and scooters, for junior and senior pupils. 

Throughout, Dunlop focused on creating a safe, stimulating environment for all pupils, teachers and staff and set also out to eliminate an institutional feel and work to avoid conventional/standard details to create a bespoke design that incorporates visual, sound and tactile clues. As many of the pupil’s trail and use canes, navigation and ease of orientation through the school environment was critical, as was studying the advantages, challenges and the environmental conditions offered by the chosen site. He considered orientation, sun path, breeze, shade and connections to the exceptional external landscape, for the wellbeing and benefit of pupils, staff, parents and visitors. “Parents and other visitors should be made to feel welcome, as soon as they enter the site campus but particularly at reception entrances and throughout the school environment and parents encouraged to become fully involved in the life of the school.