Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
The Collective worked alongside Stantec and PCL Constructors to create an area of healing for residents and visitors to CAMH and a safe place to work for all staff. With the opening of the Crisis & Critical Care Building and the McCain Complex Care & Recovery Building, the third of four phases of the most ambitious redevelopment in CAMH history.
The two new buildings, with 600,000 square feet of space, feature 235 inpatient beds. Other major enhancements to the CAMH Queen Street campus include:
1) A new state of the art Emergency Department. The Gerald Sheff and Shanitha Kacham Emergency Department is the only one in Ontario devoted exclusively to mental health treatment 24 hours a day, seven days a week. With ED visits to CAMH having increased by more than 70 per cent in the past decade, the need for a modern ED more equipped to meet the rising demand for urgent mental health care was critical. Twice the size of the previous ED on College Street, it will reduce current wait times in Ontario and provide improved intake, assessment and triage procedures for patients.
2) Enhanced therapeutic recovery and healing environment inside and outside the new buildings. A new Tour de Bleu Therapeutic Neighborhood provides a variety of structured and evidence-based recovery programming for patients, including a chef school culinary certificate program run by George Brown College. The Therapeutic Art Project, integrated into the design of both new buildings, features the work of visual artists with lived experience of mental illness. The new TD Commons features a lush diversity of trees, shrubs and plants and beautifully lit walking paths for patients and their visiting loved ones to access as part of their recovery. It also acts as a meeting ground where the CAMH community intersects with the surrounding West Queen neighborhood.
3) Consolidation of education and clinical care to one location. One of the major benefits of locating the CAMH education spaces adjacent to their clinical care services is that it will foster collaborative opportunities for knowledge exchange, discovery and learning that will improve care and advance knowledge.
Delivered through the P3 (Public-Private Partnership) model, these two new buildings provide an empowering, dignified and safe environment that will transform care in our community, while advancing globally significant research and education.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital and a world leading research centre in this field. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental illness and addiction. CAMH is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto and is a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre.
The Collective procured and installed furniture across 16 floors of these 2 buildings. We are so proud to have been a part of the furniture team with CAMH and PCL and we look forward to seeing all the new ways CAMH can positively shape Toronto.
