Disrupting Design

Can architecture heal? This Toronto centre sees design as essential to well-being

After opening their new building, the length of stay for Bridgepoint Active Healthcare patients is down by 30%. People are getting better faster.

After opening their new building, the length of stay for Bridgepoint Active Healthcare patients is down by 30%

Bridgepoint Active Healthcare overlooks Toronto's Don Valley. (CBC)

Quality design, meaning the magnificent and correct arrangement of forms and light, are as essential to our well-being as food and rest.- Greg Colucci, Principal at Diamond Schmitt Architects paraphrasing the French architectural giant Le Corbusier

Architectural design and healthcare aren't often considered in the same context, but the folks at Toronto's Bridgepoint Active Healthcare have shown that should not be the case. After opening their new building, people are getting better faster: the length of stay for patients is down by 30%. And they argue that the quality of the building's design has something to do with that.
 

When you come inside you have this feeling of a light airy building everywhere.- Marian Walsh, Chair at Bridgepoint Sinai Health System

Hospitals are seen by the public with great anxiety and apprehension.- Greg Clucci

The vertical windows really are an aspiration. You come in lying down, but you stand up walking.- Marian Walsh

Did everything we thought about the design of the new Bridgepoint hospital actually work? The length of stay is down by about 30%, which means people are getting better faster.- Marian Walsh

Disrupting Design celebrates ingenious Canadian designers who are transforming their lives, where they live and the world. Watch Disrupting Design online now.