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Montreal Heart Institute
By : Provencher_Roy et Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architectes
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 17th edition
Discipline : Architecture
Categories : Public Building / Institutional Building : Platinum Winner
Montreal Heart Institute: Fluid circulations enhance service offerings at the health care centre
What if circulations were designed to make both the lives of patients and health care personnel easier? Improving emergency services, finding solutions for a lack of space, and modernizing dilapidated spaces: the challenge undertaken for the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI). A 32,000-m2 expansion and a 1,500-m2 redesign of the existing building provide the centre with the necessary equipment to remain an industry leader in the cardiac health field, while also responding to the needs of the community. Sixty new single rooms are therefore available for patients. The design team also enhanced the site with vast green spaces, conceived for everyone’s well-being.
The project is comprised of a new ambulatory care centre, connected underground parkade, training centre employing cutting-edge technology, critical care units (Cardiology and Intensive Care), and a modernized Emergency Department. These facilities have been devised to support the MHI’s standards of excellence in the realms of prevention, patient care, teaching, and cardiovascular medicine research. The spaces revolve around well-considered circulations and the simple notion of clarifying the comings and goings of building users by creating distinct fluid pathways for clinical groups and the public. The care taken in addressing circulations enables the decongestion of both interior and exterior transition spaces at the Institute. For example, a grand hall and the hallway linking levels 1 and 2 enable orienting people arriving at the main entrance towards the tall volume housing ambulatory functions, while a ramp dedicated to ambulance access ensures the functionality of the Emergency Department. These new access points serve to limit circulation within clinical and logistical corridors, in addition to ensuring safety for all and the efficiency of the establishment.
While the 3rd and 4th floors are dedicated to care units, the 5th floor accommodates office spaces. On the upper floors, a shade screen system modulates the abundant infiltration of natural light, depending on time of day. Here, the flexibility of usages prevails. If one day the MHI develops different spatial needs, the administration zone can be demolished to convert the full floor into a care unit comprised of 30 beds. The project favours the reuse of existing surfaces. The team proposed an extension around and above the north block, to integrate the existing structure in the most logical, economical, efficient, and resourceful way possible. Finally, in the future, the west block will be ready to accommodate a total of 6 storeys. The structure was conceived to adapt to the expansion of ambulatory care functions or research facilities, depending on the MHI’s ongoing development needs.
At the MHI, the team proposes to make use of a maximum of green spaces devised for patients and medical personnel alike. While before the centre only disposed of a few uninviting grass patches at the edges of buildings and parking lots, today it benefits from a design integrating a green terrace accessible to patients of the Intensive Care unit on the 3rd floor, and a vast green courtyard in which users are invited to stroll and slow down their pace. In fact, the circulation at the heart of the building is articulated around this exterior space. Immense glazed spaces on three sides of the courtyard encourage the enjoyment of views of this peaceful oasis, constituting a main focal point of the site. These surroundings establish a landmark for users to situate themselves in the building at any given moment. The desire to multiply various perspectives of the city also manifests itself in patients’ rooms, spaces benefitting from the highest fenestration possible in addition to views of landscaped zones, rather than of simple roofing. The resulting enhancement of patient and personnel well-being represents a first step in the healing process.
Collaboration
Architect : Jodoin Lamarre Pratte architectes
Landscape Architecture : Provencher_Roy
