Good Shepherd Square | Bill Curran

An urban infill site in a residential neighbourhood, close to Hamilton’s downtown, Good Shepherd Square creates a unique campus of four buildings designed around a stand of mature trees, framing a new public parkette. Public walkways cross the site to connect to the adjacent community and lead to a piazza at the north end.

CGS developed the initial vision of the project, continued on to develop the design, worked through approvals and construction to bring it to completion. The project demonstrates the ability of CGS Architects to study surrounding neighborhood context to create a thoughtful and sensitive fit for built projects. The design team also followed municipal urban design guidelines by emphasizing pedestrian uses through the creation of a public parkette with paths running through the site.

The complex consists of four buildings: a 51,000 sq. ft. Women’s Services facility with transitional housing around an enclosed garden courtyard, an eight storey building with seniors apartments over a main floor Wellness Centre, an eight storey apartment building containing family apartments over a large main floor of program and activity space, and a small
three-storey family apartment building that helps transition the development into the adjacent community.

The design was guided by an extensive public participation process that included a community liaison committee and regular open houses. CGS studied existing pedestrian traffic through the neighbourhood and across the site when considering site circulation, and carefully examined architectural details, rhythms, and materials from the surrounding neighbourhood to inform the design of the new buildings.