Innovative New Site Design
CAMH has worked with an award-winning team of architects to translate the Functional Program into a program for the transformation
of the Queen Street site. The redeveloped site will be CAMH's central hub with inpatient and outpatient services, research,
education and health promotion, university teaching, professional training, and various community resources. The hub will
be linked to a network of community-based satellites.
CAMH's goal is to change the institutional character of the site and physically integrate it with the surrounding neighbourhood.
Existing streets will be extended through the site, creating new city blocks. This integration with the community is very
important to address the stigma long associated with the property and will improve and normalize the care environment for
CAMH's clients.
The Integrated Community
The institutional stigma related to the Queen Street site will be replaced with a real community setting for client care.
Essentially, CAMH is seeking to de-institutionalize the type of care it provides. CAMH's new hub at the Queen Street site
will be designed with a pattern of buildings, street, sidewalks, new shops, and open spaces that will integrate with the surrounding
neighbourhood. It will contain a mix of uses and activities, creating a safe, comfortable, and welcoming place for both our
clients and our neighbours in the Queen West community.
Pedestrian-friendly Streetscapes and Parks
Through the Redevelopment Project, the extension of the local street network will bring the CAMH property into the surrounding
urban fabric. The new streets, and those surrounding the property will form a network that provides a number of routes for
pedestrians, cyclists, transit, and cars. The streets will be designed as typical, urban neighbourhood streets, with careful
attention paid to the creation of a safe and comfortable pedestrian realm. They will include trees, as well as pedestrian-scale
lighting and seating. In all cases, the streets will be lined up with the existing north-south running streets to the north
of Queen Street West. CAMH and the City of Toronto developed and have agreed to a set of Urban Design Guidelines that will govern the placement of street trees and lighting, the width of sidewalks, and all of the other elements that combine
to create a welcoming pedestrian environment.
The Master Plan identifies three sites for public open space, tentatively named Shaw Park, Adelaide Common East, and Fennings Park. The public
spaces have been located where groups of mature trees are found and where they reinforce the neighbourhood pattern of open
space and green linkages. These public open spaces will be integrated with a green network throughout, ensuring that significant
areas of mature trees are preserved and sufficient green space is provided for clients.
In addition to the public open spaces, CAMH is intending to create private open spaces to protect significant stands of mature
trees where they exist, and to provide some programmed open space for CAMH use. Also, the development blocks have been configured
to preserve as many mature trees as feasible. Open space for CAMH use, including gardens and a greenhouse, will be located
along the south side of the Adelaide Street extension, west of the eastern heritage building, in an area called Adelaide Common
West.
Flexible Buildings
CAMH's new buildings will be designed to be flexible to ensure that they can meet changing health care needs, and not become
obsolete in 20 or 30 years, as the current buildings have. The CAMH buildings will be designed to accommodate a potentially
changing palette of office, meeting, and client living spaces and outpatient services.
Most new buildings will be institutional or commercial buildings, between four and ten stories. The maximum heights within
the redevelopment are governed by the site-specific zoning by-law. Typically, the lowest heights will be in the areas directly
adjacent to neighbouring houses (such as along the western boundary of our site), greater heights along Queen and Shaw streets,
and the tallest buildings within the centre of the redevelopment.
The east-west orientation will provide the opportunity for most buildings to enjoy a good south facing exposure for passive
heat gains during the winter season. Buildings will be designed to maximize natural light and views. The many trees (existing
and those that we will plant) will shade the buildings and the public spaces in the summer months.
Centre for Addiction
