Date Posted: 06.06.2025
The Washington School for the Deaf (WSD) Divine Academic and Hunter Gymnasium has won a 2025 WoodWorks Wood in Architecture Award. This national honor celebrates excellence in mass timber and wood design, showcasing innovative projects that positively impact the environment, occupants and communities throughout the nation.
“This project had so many unique design elements, including our discovery process, use of DeafSpace Guidelines, the decision to include intentional acoustic vibration and more. Our goal was to design a school that met the specialized needs of these students, and mass timber allowed us to do so,” shares Mithun partner JoAnn Wilcox.
The two-phase K-12 campus expansion — including the mass timber Divine Academic Building, Hunter Gymnasium, fully accessible Despo’s Playground and outdoor playfield — centers the deaf experience and creates spaces where all users feel welcomed and supported. The academic building incorporates glue-laminated wood for columns and beams, as well as three-ply cross-laminated (CLT) timber for the roof structure and floors. The extensive use of wood supports a home-like experience for students (many of whom reside on campus during the school week), utilizes acoustic vibrations to support communication, and provides biophilic benefits to student well-being and learning outcomes.
“I agree with the students that we’ve surpassed our dreams. For a long time, our buildings were old and derelict. We now have a beautiful school that is unique to our community,” said Shauna Bilyeu, executive director of the Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Youth (CDHY) and WSD. “This will be a national model.”
Informed by Mithun’s Building Better Schools R+D study, the mass timber structure is cost competitive with more traditional building systems, results in a ratio of less than .50 cubic feet of wood fiber per gross square foot of building area (which is below industry standard), and contributes to low embodied carbon emissions of 88.5 kgCO2e/m2.
LEED Gold certified, the project is highly energy-efficient, leveraging an existing open loop geothermal system and super-tight building envelope to achieve an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) of 32.1.
The project team includes Mithun, architecture, landscape architecture, interior design; Skanska, progressive design-build team lead and general contractor; Hansel Bauman Architects + Partners and Robert T. Sirvage, DeafSpace consultants; Washington State Department of Enterprise Services, owner’s representative; PCS Structural Solutions, structural engineering; Harper Houf Peterson Righellis Inc., civil engineering; JH Kelly, LLC and Glumac, MEP; Dark Light Design, lighting; A3 Acoustics, LLP, acoustics; Mayer/Reed, Inc., signage and environmental design.
Explore the project design and mass timber system via the 2025 WoodWorks Wood in Architecture Awards project profile.
