Bridgepoint Active Healthcare

Bridgepoint Active Healthcare is Canada's leader in complex care and rehabilitation. The 10-story, 472-bed hospital is the largest healthcare facility of its kind in Canada and the only organization dedicated to people living with complex chronic disease and disability. As part of the project, the adjacent 148-year-old Don Jail was readapted into the hospital's administrative and education center. The restoration is emblematic of Bridgepoint's commitment to transformative rehabilitation—giving new life to an important Toronto landmark.

Being that complex-continuing care patients typically spend up to three months in a hospital, special attention was given to providing a new kind of healthcare in a new kind of hospital—one that acts as a civic building, an urban place, and a place for healthcare and community to come together. The community is drawn into the building by visitor-friendly features, such as glass walls, food concessions, retail outlets, learning centres, an auditorium, and an outdoor terrace with steps to parkland. In patient rooms, patients can peer into the outside world through narrow floor-to-ceiling "pop-out" windows—a key design element on the exterior—interspersed with horizontal windows. Additionally, communal patient dining rooms, an Internet café, a spiritual room, a rooftop garden, therapy and rehabilitation rooms, outside terraces, and a labyrinth are all designed to get patients out of their rooms and motivated to manage their illnesses.

Due to the complexity of the project, two teams of architects worked on its design and delivery. Stantec Architecture / KPMB Architects were the Planning, Design and Compliance Architects; and HDR Architecture / Diamond Schmitt Architects were the Design, Build, Finance and Maintain Architects.

The hospital is targeting LEED Gold certification.

Awards

2014 Design Excellence Award - Ontario Association of Architects
2014 Highly Commended, Health Project Over 40,000 SM category - Design & Health International Academy Awards
2014 Paul Oberman Adaptive Reuse and Heritage Restoration award - Pug Awards
2014 Best Commercial + Institutional Building - Pug Awards
2014 Finalist, Adaptive Reuse category - World Architecture News (WAN) Awards