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DECEMBER 2018 | 73 Redevelopment & Expansion – Joseph Brant Hospital PHOTOGRAPHY BY STUDIO SHAI GIL/COURTESY PARKIN ARCHITECTS LIMITED Redevelopment & Expansion – Joseph Brant Hospital by CHRISTINE MORRISSEY B urlington in Ontario has been con- sistently ranked as one of the best places to live and work in Canada, and so when the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Infrastructure Ontario, the City of Burlington and the Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN) announced plans to collabo- rate on a new project to redevelop and expand Joseph Brant Hospital, it was welcomed with open arms by the rap- idly growing community. The project was completed in two distinct phases. Phase one saw the construction of the Halton McMaster Family Health Centre, hospital admin- istration, and new parking facility, while phase two saw renovations to the existing hospital and the con- struction of the seven-storey Michael Lee-Chin and Family Patient Tower, which consists of a podium and pent- house level, and contains the main hospital lobby, information desk, gift shop, emergency department, cancer clinic, surgery, ICU and acute medicine. The highly anticipated refurbish- ment and addition, which is now complete, is part of the hospital's long- term plan to lead the way to a new era of modern medicine. "There's a lot of evidence to show that a patient's envi- ronment can have a huge impact on recovery," says Mario Joannette, chief communications officer at Joseph Brant Hospital. "We want it to feel warm and welcoming and not add to people's stress. We wanted to deinstitutionalize the institution." According to Henri Dekker, direc- tor of redevelopment and facilities at Joseph Brant Hospital, there were two major areas that were the focus of redevelopment. "The first was a new ambulatory care area, which is some- thing the hospital didn't have in the past. We were able to take what was in essence the old emergency department and rebuild it into a state-of-the-art ambulatory care unit." Dekker adds that the second was the expansion of the diagnostic imaging department, to provide a better and more efficient ser- vice to the community. To minimize impact on daily hos- pital operations, the new tower was built first to allow spaces to be emp- tied in the existing structure and then renovated. "We spent a lot of time training and preparing staff, commu- nity partners, and volunteers ahead of the move," explains Joannette. "It takes a lot of good communication with the public as well – we couldn't have peo- ple showing up to the old emergency department seeking help once it had been closed." The site design for the hospi- tal was predicated on sound urban design principles that are aligned with Joseph Brant Hospital's vision and the Campus Master Plan. "Central to the design is the concept of integrat- ing a modern facility sensitively and respectfully into the existing fabric of the site as well as creating a fully acces- sible, walkable, health-care campus that respects and establishes strong connections with its immediate man- made and environmental context," explains Domenic Virdo from Adamson Associates Architects. As is common with such projects, when it came to the construction, general contractor EllisDon and the structural consultants RJC Engineers were faced with the challenge of lay- ing foundations on a tight site. "With Lake Ontario so close, deep foun- dations were needed, but drilling caissons require a certain amount of space for the machinery," says Jennifer Watson, lead structural engineer from RJC Engineers. "The new patient tower also has taller floor-to-floor heights, as per modern recommendations, so we needed to develop a strategy to con- nect the existing structure with the new build." To establish this clear connection between the existing and new building, Parkin Architects ensured strate- gic placement of the elevators. "The result of this vertical linkage allows the discrete movement of patients between all levels of the existing and new components of the hospital with- out traversing public areas," says John Christie, lead project architect and clinical planner from Parkin Architects Limited. "Additionally, the entrance to the existing hospital [which was maintained], the new entrance on the lake side, and the bridge connection to the parking structure are all linked to create an intuitive and obvious patient and visitor journey with natural light, seating, retail, and architectural fea- tures along the way." As for the tower, Virdo says that while iconic in stature, its modern esthetic is made approachable along the entry sequence from Lakeshore Road through the development of a building massing that consists of a series of cascading forms, a sensitiv- ity to materiality (in particular the use of transparency, warm tones and tex- tures), careful detailing of elements closest to and along the pedestrian condition as well as connections to the natural environment. Along Lakeshore Road, the mass- ing strategy institutes a large set-back above the podium level that creates a human scaled street wall condi- tion along the eastern edge of the site and then again above the last occu- pied inpatient floor. "In doing so, the building becomes non-imposing, appropriately sized, and is never over- whelming," says Virdo.

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