Center for Addiction and Mental Health / Centre de dépendance et de santé mentale
2001
Toronto, Ontario, Canada- Health and welfare facilities
- Complexes
- District
The competition for the Center for Addiction and Mental Health was launched the 3rd of August 2001 with the aim to obtain a series of propositions concerning the development of their property known as the "1001 Queen Street West". Already, in 1999, the trustees' board had the intention to create a new hub for the institution. The Toronto based firm Urban Strategies inc. then worked with them in order to conceive a award-wining master plan for their vision. It's on these bases that the four participating teams developed their ideas.
The intention was to select a team to realise the final master plan for the property's 27 acres situated on downtown's west side. The installations, in addition to be integrated to the neighbourhood's activities, had to be conceived with an idea of adaptability inherent to the needs of such an institution. It was also an opportunity to give a new image to the site which was occupied by an asylum for 150 years.
Concerning this, the Centre's director, Paul Garfinkel, was quoted in september's 2007 edition of Canadian Architect that it was particularly important that people be treated respectfully and with dignity. This will be possible, according to him, by the creation of an urban village in which all scales, from urban integration to room space, will be rethought. Moreover, with this attitude, it will be possible to free the site from the past negative psychiatry reminders by envisioning a greater consideration of the individual and the setting of his treatment.
John Bentley Mays' article also mentions the intention to scatter places for treatment throughout other non-centre's structures, as suggests Jane Jacobs' neighbourhood urbanism and hospital reformers that would like to see this type of "institutions stitched more tightly into the fabric of urban life and structure.
Out of the four teams compensated to participate in this phase, the winning participant, formed by the offices Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, Montgomery Sisam Architects Inc. and Kearns Mancini Architects Inc. consortium was to be awarded a contract for the completion of the master plan and its submission to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
(CCC text)
The intention was to select a team to realise the final master plan for the property's 27 acres situated on downtown's west side. The installations, in addition to be integrated to the neighbourhood's activities, had to be conceived with an idea of adaptability inherent to the needs of such an institution. It was also an opportunity to give a new image to the site which was occupied by an asylum for 150 years.
Concerning this, the Centre's director, Paul Garfinkel, was quoted in september's 2007 edition of Canadian Architect that it was particularly important that people be treated respectfully and with dignity. This will be possible, according to him, by the creation of an urban village in which all scales, from urban integration to room space, will be rethought. Moreover, with this attitude, it will be possible to free the site from the past negative psychiatry reminders by envisioning a greater consideration of the individual and the setting of his treatment.
John Bentley Mays' article also mentions the intention to scatter places for treatment throughout other non-centre's structures, as suggests Jane Jacobs' neighbourhood urbanism and hospital reformers that would like to see this type of "institutions stitched more tightly into the fabric of urban life and structure.
Out of the four teams compensated to participate in this phase, the winning participant, formed by the offices Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, Montgomery Sisam Architects Inc. and Kearns Mancini Architects Inc. consortium was to be awarded a contract for the completion of the master plan and its submission to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
(CCC text)