THE CENTRE FOR ADDICTION AND MENTAL HEALTH

The CAMH hub is a fully integrated mixed-use campus that forms the heart of a new urban village on Queen Street West. This new community addresses the diverse program needs of CAMH, the development potential of the site, and the changing neighbourhood context. Residential buildings are designed to provide a context for other buildings and spaces which will assert a more distinct identity. Two residential apartment prototypes are designed to meet the programmatic for twenty-four bed home areas, suitable for a high level of support and treatment. Each home area is linked to a secure outdoor garden, either at grade within a garden court, or at the roof level.

Phase 1A is comprised of three residential buildings and a clinic. There are a total of seventy-two resident suites, with shared kitchen and dining facilities. These are designed specifically for patients preparing to re-integrate with society after treatment, with the out-patient clinic providing community and group therapy rooms for re-habilitated individuals.

The building’s program caters for people suffering from mood disorders and schizophrenia. Instrumental in the design process at all times was ensuring the safety and protection of patients, staff and visitors depending on the level of security required.

Each home area is linked to a secure landscaped outdoor space within a garden court.

Phase 1B is comprised of 3 urban mid-rise buildings that are now under construction. KMA is facilitating and monitoring compliance of this phase which will include a pschyo-geriatrics unit, a child and youth secure unit, and the main food distribution centre and house-keeping services for CAMH. It will also contain the general administration centre, IT department and main out-patients clinic.

The urban mid-rise mental health facility is the first of its kind in Canada. Inpatient floors are divided into patient and non-patient zones where patients feel at home in their space. The nurse and doctor entering into the patient zone become a guest providing care. Decentralized nurse stations divide up patient zones providing localized observation fully engaging Nurses while on duty. Access to views outside and fresh air in the vertical configuration reduces the hospital feel of the patient zone.

New streets cutting through the site provide for further connection back to the city, while creating a safe, external environment within the complex for patients and visitors alike. These facilities represent the Centre’s commitments to both providing quality health care in a more nurturing environment and creating an architecture with a unique residential identity.

Instrumental in KMA’s design process was ensuring a safe, secure environment be created without separating or isolating CAMH physically from the community in which it resides.