Detail of the project ed. 2024

sis­ters-of-st-joseph-of-toron­­to / Canada

Design­er	Brigitte Shim
Loca­tion	2 O’Con­nor Dr, Toron­to, ON M4K 2K1, Canada
Nation	Cana­da
Design Team	Brigitte Shim Howard Sutcliffe
Year	2014
Pho­to credits	Pos­i­tive Imag­ing Pho­tog­ra­phy: Pho­to 1 External. Jim Dow: Pho­to 2 External. Scott Nor­swor­thy: Pho­tos 3–5 Exter­nal & Pho­tos 1–3 Internal. Bob Gun­du: Pho­tos 4–5 Internal.

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

Form­ing a sin­u­ous line between the Don Val­ley to the north and the low-rise urban fab­ric of the city to the south, the Res­i­dence for the Sis­ters of St Joseph of Toron­to artic­u­lates both indi­vid­ual con­tem­pla­tive life and the com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment of the Sis­ters min­istries, mak­ing rela­tion­ships to Nature and City to rein­force pub­lic and pri­vate aspects.

The Res­i­dence for the Sis­ters of St. Joseph of Toron­to is locat­ed in the heart of the City of Toron­to and includes the restora­tion and reha­bil­i­ta­tion of the 1850’s Tay­lor House. 

The Sister’s mis­sion state­ment man­dat­ed an eco­log­i­cal approach to phys­i­cal, social and eco­nom­ic well-being of all peo­ple. The pro­gram for the build­ing includes 58 res­i­den­tial suites accom­mo­dat­ing a vari­ety of lev­els of care, from inde­pen­dent liv­ing to long term care, nurs­ing sta­tions and pri­vate hos­pi­tal facilities.

The design of the new res­i­dence for the Sister’s is orga­nized along a sin­gle loaded cor­ri­dor that forms the spine of the build­ing. A series of oper­a­ble win­dows line one edge of the cor­ri­dor, admit­ting an abun­dance of nat­ur­al light and nat­ur­al ven­ti­la­tion through the cor­ri­dor and into the suites over­look­ing the ver­dant ravine land­scape. The land­scap­ing for the project medi­ates between the restored for­est of the ravine, the build­ing and the city. 

In this project, sus­tain­abil­i­ty extends beyond the phys­i­cal require­ments of cre­at­ing a green build­ing and includes the longer term evo­lu­tion of the Sister’s as an orga­ni­za­tion and its abil­i­ty to thrive. The project’s green agen­da is an inte­gral part of its lega­cy and includes geot­her­mal heat­ing and cool­ing, solar pan­els, solar hot water pre-heat­ing, green roofs, rain­wa­ter cis­terns and per­me­able pavers. 

The indi­vid­ual suites for each Sis­ter serve as a home with­in a larg­er home sup­port­ing the needs of each Sis­ter while fos­ter­ing the core val­ues and beliefs of the Sister’s.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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