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<p>When she was a little girl, Kimberly Au saw Don Mills as a kind of wonderland. Visiting her aunt and uncle, who lived in the neighbourhood, "I'd wander through all these connected parks on my little purple tricycle," she recalls. "It was so green, so beautiful, and I always said, 'Wow!'"</p> <p>Now she just has to look out her windows to get the same feeling: She now lives with her husband and daughter in a Don Mills house that backs onto one of the neighbourhood's "greenway" parks.</p> <p>They commissioned the house from architect Cheryl Atkinson to take full advantage of the site.</p>

<p>The opening of a continuing care and rehabilitation facility in Toronto offers an opportunity to undertake a systematic post-occupancy evaluation project – one that focuses on the interplay of mental, social and physical health rather than operational outcomes.</p>

<p>This report documents, compares, and analyses selected architectural design elements across three healthcare facilities under study in the in- progress, pre- and post- occupancy evaluation of Bridgepoint Active Healthcare. The larger program of research is a multi-year, multi-method program of research assessing the impact of architectural design on health outcomes in the context of the Bridgepoint Hospital redevelopment, led by a team of social scientists. The study utilizes a quasi-experimental research design with mixed quantitative and qualitative measures, and a control facility to compare patient, staff, and organizational outcomes across these healthcare facilities. The primary objective is to evaluate the impact of building design on well-being and improved patient outcomes for people living with multiple health conditions.</p> <p>As a key component of the overall research program, this report details the environmental conditions, both built and natural, of the New Bridgepont Active Healthcare (BAH) long term, chronic care hospital, and its predecessor, the recently demolished 1963 Bridgepoint Health (BH) facility, against the control hospital used for this POE study, West Park Healthcare Centre (WP).</p> <p>This architectural documentation and analysis addresses the nonclinical spaces and design components that the architects targeted at the outset, as having potential to reduce stress, and impact in-patient psychosocial well-being during their treatment and stay.</p> <p>Primary <strong>design objectives</strong> aimed at improving both in-patient and outpatient experience and quality of life were:</p> <ul> <li>improved patient privacy (for both hygiene and social reasons)</li> <li>improved quantity, quality and variety of patient amenity programs</li> <li>improved opportunity for social integration between patients and staff</li> <li>improved integration and connection to the local community</li> <li>improved access to daylight and view for all spaces</li> <li>improved connection to the natural environment</li> <li>improved clarity of wayfinding</li> <li>improved quality and variety of spaces and activities to create more calming and aesthetically pleasing environments, and to encourage patient mobility</li> </ul>