Opportunity and Challenge
The redesign of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) project is an unprecedented opportunity to change society's fundamental perceptions about mental health and addiction. By combining the resources and strengths of four different institutions, by giving them a new home that is truly integrated with the life of the city and by delivering services in new and different ways, the Centre's promise is to enhance its reputation as an institution of international significance and a true leader in the understanding and treatment of people with mental and addictions problems. This is an enormously important mission and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Asking the Right Questions
First and foremost, it is important to understand that this is a multi-dimensional challenge that requires a multi-dimensional response. The new CAMH is not just about making new buildings (though new buildings are certainly important), nor is it just about creating a new organization chart that combines the resources of four existing institutions (though organizations and management are also critically important). At its core, the success of the new CAMH depends on vision and strategy, and the courage to ask the right questions. How should people with mental health and addictions issues be treated, and in what kinds of settings? How can the stigma of people with such problems be erased? What advances in research will fundamentally change treatment protocols? How can the new CAMH be truly integrated with the city to take full advantage of the resources of the site?
Framing the Solution
The answers to these questions will guide the future of CAMH and give form to the buildings that will comprise the new Centre. At its core, CAMH is intended to be an urban place: open, friendly, and accessible to the people that it serves and to the community beyond. Therefore, like the city, the basic building blocks of the new CAMH are the neighbourhood, its open spaces and its streets. Toronto is a city that is defined by its major streets, and this tradition will be reinforced on the CAMH site by introducing a pattern of new streets that extend the urban fabric across the 27 acres of the site. There are key principles which underlie the proposed plan. The first is to embrace and extend the traditional grid of the Toronto street system, blending it seamlessly with the site. The second is to recognize and reconcile the conflicting goals of creating an open, accessible, and dispersed campus with the equally important need for compactness and functional efficiency. The third is to de-institutionalize the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health by creating a truly mixed-used urban environment that takes full advantage of a variety of building styles, heights, and uses, all carefully knit together by thoughtful open space and landscape planning.
(Competitor's text)
24 scanned / 18 viewable
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel Excerpt
- Presentation Panel Excerpt
- Presentation Panel Excerpt
- Presentation Panel Excerpt
- Presentation Panel Excerpt
- Presentation Panel Excerpt
- Photograph of Model
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
