HOSPITAL DESIGN
patients, visitors, and staff, from the exterior to the interior, where flooring patterns and cultural motifs help weave people through the first floor’s public area.
Each floor has own colour scheme To acknowledge the many types of landscape and ways of life in the service area of the hospital, each of the facility’s six floors has its own colour and theme. Beginning with the aurora borealis on ground level, successive floors are inspired by the Barren Lands, rivers, forests, lakes, mountains, and, finally, the Arctic. This serves to aid with wayfinding and orientation. Signage further helps with hospital navigation. Easily identifiable, it offers a hierarchy of information using accent colours, animal icons, and patterns, to assist visitors. With 11 official languages recognised in the N.W.T., the design team had to be innovative in incorporating them onto the limited signage size. It employed universal symbols in a digital directory that can switch between languages. Directions are offered in the desired language on the directory, while hard signs are communicated in Canada’s two official languages, English and French.
Impression of being in a teepee A non-denominational sacred space was created for meditation. Its high ceiling, sloped walls, and abundance of windows, create the sensation of being inside a glass-enclosed half-teepee. The room is equipped with a special ventilation system to handle the smoke from traditional indigenous smudging ceremonies.
The Stanton Territorial Hospital’s birthing suite, dining area, and an examination room.
New Saskatchewan Hospital Located 140 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon is Saskatchewan Hospital North Battleford, a 284-bed mental health facility that replaced the city’s century-old psychiatric hospital and two correctional facilities. This innovative approach to delivering mental healthcare offers support to two separate groups with significant rehabilitation needs under one roof.
The new facility was built in a way that integrates the required security into the design, rather than applying it to the design. This method has been proven to enhance flexibility, reliability, and safety. As at Stanton Territorial Hospital, community consultation was key to meeting the needs of the service population, which includes many people who identify as indigenous or Métis. From this process, it was identified that one of the main facility requirements was the incorporation of their culture. Dialogue with indigenous elders during the design process ensured that their voices were heard and appropriately addressed. The design team also worked
36 Health Estate Journal May 2020
with approximately 50 clinical and administrative stakeholders to refine the schematic design for the facility. Materials used for the envelope reflect the local environment. The design and massing of the hospital incorporates the surrounding landscape forms of the rolling hills and prairie grasslands. Aboriginal motifs are also included in the main lobby glazing. The facility features a sweat lodge with ceremonial space, which includes a sunken floor. While restrained by security requirements, the sweat lodge’s main entrance opens to the east to address indigenous traditions. Inside, there is a fire pit aligned with the same
About the authors
Macy Koochek is senior interior designer, Healthcare, at Kasian Architecture Interior Design and Planning. She is based at the firm’s Vancouver office, along with associate, Golnaz Rakhshan. Barbara Budenz is senior project architect and project manager, Healthcare, at Kasian’s Calgary office. Kasian was the architecture and interior design lead on both the Stanton Territorial Hospital and Saskatchewan Hospital North Battleford renewal projects.
cardinal direction. The space is clad in tongue and groove cedar.
‘Smudging’ rooms within client care units
There are also smudging rooms within each client care unit. With cardinal directions embedded into the floor patterns, the rooms are equipped with different ventilation to accommodate cultural and ceremonial rituals. The key driver for the project was to create an environment where residents feel at home. An emphasis was placed on client and family-centered care, and creating a non-institutional environment.
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