Isotope

+VG Architects were retained by the Kingston Community Health Centre in 2012 to design the new Napanee Area Community Health Centre (NaCHC).

The two-storey building reinforces the urban street edge offering a colonnade and covered walkway for pedestrians and building users. Upon arrival from the west, the building establishes a “gateway” into the downtown pedestrian district.

The new centre will house a variety of programs including Primary Care, Diabetes Education, Community Support, Indigenous Health, Partners’ Space and associated storage and building service spaces. The Indigenous Health program includes a circular Healing Lodge that is used by the Elders for “healing” events, as well as shared by the community as a meeting/gathering space in conjunction with the larger multi-purpose Room.

An intimate entry courtyard on the south side of the building provides a landscaped area for the program’s Sweat Lodge. The Sweat Lodge structure will be constructed by the local Indigenous community upon completion of the building.

The pandemic environment created many unique challenges for this project. Under the leadership of +VG staff, exceptional collaboration, among the owner, project manager, stakeholder groups and the contractor, while maintaining safety protocols, was the key to minimizing these disruptions.

By communicating the challenges in a way which was easily understood by all project participants using virtual technologies, +VG staff were able to achieve consensus and introduce flexibility into solving issues like material shortages, and thereby maintain the project schedule.

Connected to the Natural Environment
The building siting is conceived as a simple, elegant rural structure in the landscape. The barn vernacular features two gable roofs clad in standing seam metal and wood clad exterior walls. The main entrance is featured centrally, creating an axis and narrative through the building. Administrative offices overlook arrivals and departures through large windows, and private gardens for each suite feature a patio and planting screens for use in any weather.

Open & Accessible
Familiar interior residential materials in wood and glass are used to convey the message that the building is not a hospital, but a community-centred home. A fireplace feature separates the reception and living space. The large open space allows for mobility devices, wheeled beds and gurneys.

Functionality, Livability & Work Flow
This new hospice features a central route that is efficient for staff and volunteers to provide multiple levels of care. Spaces along the route have been carefully organized to optimize work flow and minimize redundancies. Primary care is consolidated around the suites including the Nurse Station, Medication Room, Counselling Room and Utility Rooms.

Energy Efficient & Sustainable
HVAC is separated into zones to maximize energy efficiency. Increased air handling systems are incorporated to allow smudging within some areas to create a more inclusive environment.

Innisfree House is envisioned to be a welcoming home for people in need of end of life care.

Design of a hospice begins with an understanding of residents’ needs as much as the needs of the staff providing the highest level of care. During this project, +VG demonstrated sensitivity to both the intangible and practical elements required to ensure the success of the project.

Innisfree House is a unique facility in Kitchener, created to provide an improved, alternative palliative care environment with a non-clinical, home-like atmosphere for bereaved families.

The key word for understanding the concept of a hospice is Care. Care of the dying, care for grieving families and friends, and care for the community of staff and volunteers who serve in the facility. The design for Innisfree House welcomes residents upon arrival, with a wide embracing glass entrance and overhead canopy offering immediate protection from the elements. This entrance passageway and adjacent foyer are significant to the hospice philosophy: Residents arrive through the front door and leave by the front door. Staff and volunteers gather for both.

Live. Grow. Be. These words express the Kitchener Downtown Community Health Centre’s commitment to a continuum of care model that is accessible, equitable, appropriate, holistic and transformative.

They also express the design approach for the new location in downtown Kitchener, part of the larger urban transformation from derelict factory district to a rejuvenated community destination.

A successful community partnership since opening its doors in 2000, the Kitchener Downtown Community Health Centre provides care for people in the downtown, and those from different ethno-cultural groups, with particular emphasis on those unable to access health services. Increased demand for services and programs resulted in the need for a larger facility to accommodate the needs of clients, their communities and staff.

Key Objectives include:

• Downtown location to connect with their client base, community services, cultural resources, amenities and public transit
• Improved accessibility
• Healthy visitor and workplace environment
• Barrier free, secure and confidential client experience

Parallel to the continuum of care model, the approach to planning and design of the new space is a health-centric one. Applied to urban form, architecture and interior design, the new KDCHC facility models the vision of care through building terms of restoration, rehabilitation, renewal, adaptive re-use and transformation.