Healthcare Design - November 2017 - 50

the ambulatory building houses exam rooms as
well as individual consultation rooms, but the design team established the same general footprint
for both so that as healthcare needs evolve over
time, the use of these rooms can flex to meet specific departmental demands.
C R E AT I N G A N U R B A N C O N T E X T

NOVEMBER 2017

public streets. Instead, the project team planned to link the buildings
solely via an underground passageway before deciding to create a more
efficient and direct connection between the blood bank and the surgery
block across the street. "The city set the bar high in that if they were going
to allow us to have this aerial connection, it would have to be almost an
art piece," Chichmanian says. The result is an organic-shaped structure
covered in perforated copper panels (also inspired by the planned copper-clad amphitheater), which allow sunlight to pass through without
casting shadows below, while at night the illuminated bridge appears as
a lantern. Staff use the elevated passageway to move between the buildings, and the underground tunnel is used for logistics flow.
Inside the CHUM, the interior design strategy is focused on humanizing the environment and helping patients, families, and visitors navigate
the structure. Color is a primary wayfinding tool, with each floor of the
outpatient clinic assigned a specific color, while the inpatient side features three alternating hues. Warmer tones are used in the north tower
and cooler ones in the south tower, each balanced with the availability of
natural light in those spaces. "Color is located in key points where people
need to go and know they've arrived at a point of destination," says Jocelyn Stroupe, director of healthcare interiors for CannonDesign.

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T O P : Public spaces, in-

cluding an outdoor eating
area on the second floor,
were prioritized as part of
the design to encourage
passersby to come in
and linger or simply cut
through the building as
they travel the neighborhood. AB O V E : Several
treatment areas, such as
this infusion space located
on an upper floor of the
ambulatory clinic building, were designed to
provide patients, visitors,
and staff with stunning
views of the surrounding
city and landscape.

CHRISTOPHER BARRETT

While the CHUM's programmatic requirements
provided an opportunity to rethink operational
planning on a large scale, its urban setting was a
chance to redefine healthcare in the city and create a new landmark. The hospital is on two blocks
in a neighborhood that was once a social hub for
the city's French population until a highway was
built in the early 1970s, dividing the community
and creating a sense of isolation. The city viewed
the CHUM project as a catalyst for urban renewal and an opportunity to reconnect the area by
anchoring a new health district, Quartier de la Santé, which includes a neighboring research center.
Another benefit of organizing the facility into
five buildings was to better fit the massive structure into the existing neighborhood. On the street
level, an "open and transparent" strategy was
employed to appeal to the pedestrian setting and
welcome patients and families with street-level
building forms kept in scale with the low- and
mid-rise structures nearby. The main entrance of
the campus features a large inner courtyard, the
Esplanade Jardin, with copper cladding planned
for the Phase 2 amphitheater inspiring visual references throughout the pedestrian circulation
paths to aid wayfinding.
Furthermore, the project team committed to
preserving a series of architectural elements already on the site, including a church built in 1865
and the church custodian's house built in 1871.
The church steeple and two walls from the house
were disassembled and then integrated into the
new hospital, with the steeple becoming one of the
main entrances that connects to an outdoor eating area on the second floor and the house walls
displayed in glass inside the public atrium. The
historic elements are juxtaposed with a modern
materials palette, including glass, aluminum, copper, and stone. "All these elements animate the
pedestrian experience and re-stitch part of that
urban fabric together," Chichmanian says.
Another striking piece of architecture at the
CHUM is the elevated "passerelle," or bridge,
connecting the ambulatory center to the logistics building. The link wasn't part of the original
proposal, in part because the city of Montreal
doesn't promote above-ground connections over

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Healthcare Design - November 2017

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