Casey House is a specialized healthcare facility for individuals with HIV/AIDS. The setting is designed to evoke the comfort of being at home. The addition brings much needed space and modernized amenities to augment the renovated Victorian mansion. The new structure embraces the existing building, preserving its qualities and organizing day-to-day user experience around a new central courtyard. This open space is a fundamental part of the design and is the heart of the facility, flooding patient spaces with natural light and providing a connection to the outside world, making the hospital feel like a home.

Light study section drawing on the left
Photo and Drawing Credit: doublespace photography; Hariri Pontarini Architects 

Casey House is an institution that takes care of Toronto’s most vulnerable. Standing on the corner of Jarvis and Isabella Streets, the House is a manifestation of the fight against HIV/AIDS and provides care in intimate settings for its patients. The new Day Health program services 200 registered clients and 14 new in-patient rooms; the 59,000-square-foot addition brings needed space and modernized amenities to the heritage-designated Victorian mansion. 

Façade details 
Photo Credit: doublespace photography

The architecture manifests itself in vertical and horizontal planes, with a weave of multiple textures in its façade. The palette of various brick, tinted mirrored glass and crust-face limestone becomes a quilt around the central courtyard. 

Courtyard
Photo Credit: doublespace photography 

The renovation and extension develops a new prototype for hospitals where, besides treating the patient’s physical illness, they go further to address an overall sense of well-being.