Las Trampas is a non-profit organization that provides essential support and services for adults with developmental disabilities to discover their capabilities and to lead full lives in their homes, at work, and in the community. Most of the adults served by the agency have moderate to profound impacts, including intellectual disability, autism, cerebral palsy, seizure disorder, and other similar conditions. The existing campus was built over 50 years ago as a residential facility for children.

The new facility is a prototype for the education of people long overlooked. With few building precedents, part of the design brief was to review research on the interaction of this population with the environment, in particular looking at enabling these individuals through design. The result is a state of the art facility providing choices in stimulus, legibility in navigation, transition areas between all activities, indoor-outdoor connections, unobtrusive supervision, and specialized support facilities.

The proposal removes three of the four existing buildings and constructs a new building comprised of a two-story bar with a one-story wing containing classrooms and a multi-purpose room. The upper level of the new two-story building will be at the same level and perpendicular to the existing building. Together, these building components define three outdoor spaces: a southeast entry and drop-off turnaround and a courtyard area to the north and outdoor classrooms that face the creek.

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