Phase II was finished in 2022 and includes creative space, an administration building, maintenance building, outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven, an addition to the existing kitchen and dining hall, senior staff cabins, more small staff cabins, and a shower cabin.
The centrepiece is Dave’s Place, a multi-arts centre and tribute to founder Dave McKeage, who sadly passed away before Phase II was realized. Dave’s Place is a grouping of four buildings: a pottery studio, a kiln, a messy arts studio, and a music studio, all connected with a large, accessible deck to function as a focal point of activity. Dave’s Place is a place where children and counsellors hang out, perform plays, make pottery, produce arts and crafts of all kinds, and play music.

Originally conceived of as one large “lodge” structure, it eventually became clear that Dave would be better memorialized with an approach that reflected his gregarious, humorous, and humble character. So, the concept evolved into four structures scattered like children’s toys. The building forms utilize forced perspective to enliven the pieces and create playful surprises with the massing as campers approach and occupy the buildings. Built with environmentally friendly materials and fully winterized to National Energy Code standards, Dave’s Place extends the camp season through the winter. The structures are framed with steel “backbones” and wood framed construction at the roof and walls with metal cladding on the exterior.

The Taloyoak Health Center is a central fixture and point of pride within the community, combining medical, public health, and social services under one roof. The facility provides a venue for full-time primary care, public health and emergency medical service, as well as visiting and telehealth specialist clinician services.

Medical services include child and adult treatment, maternity, exams, public health clinics, emergency treatment/ stabilization for med-evac patients, imaging/diagnostics, laboratory services, pharmacy, telehealth, and a morgue. Individual and group counselling services are offered by Community Health and Social Services professionals, while physician consultations, dental and eye services, psychological/psychiatric nursing, and physical therapy/rehabilitation are all provided through regularly scheduled specialists visits or remote telehealth connections.

The project faced two major challenges during the design stage. The first being to design and construct a modern, up-to-date health care facility in a small, remote community with no piped services or road connection. The second challenge was to provide a building that could be operated and maintained by community personnel with minimal support from regional centers. The design team (Stantec and Nycum) took these challenges into consideration along with other aspects such as ease of orientation, way finding, privacy, acoustics, comfort, daylight, and views and worked closely with the community to develop a successful healthcare facility program of which the community is proud.

Acting as the community heart of the building, the central two-storey lobby/atrium serves as the major point of orientation for patients, families and staff to access all areas of the facility, creates a canvas upon which to express community and cultural values and allows borrowed daylight to penetrate into adjacent internal spaces of the facility. The atrium space is easily visible upon entry and flanked by public amenities, such as an information desk, gift shop and coffee shop, to contribute to its liveliness. Wayfinding opportunities are optimized, and patients and visitors are easily oriented as they enter into a space that is comfortable, assuring and welcoming, while the public elevator and stair located within the atrium provide highly visible and accessible vertical circulation.

From the atrium hub, the clinical spaces radiate outward providing efficiency of circulation and supervision, while setting up a rational progression from public, to semi-private, to private/secure areas of the facility. On the upper floor, horizontal circulation is designed to simplify wayfinding to areas accessed by the public, including the various inpatient unit functions, day surgery and respiratory therapy. A restricted corridor allows discrete transfer of patients from the emergency department to the surgical suites.

As the only hospital in Nunavut, this project provides expanded and enhanced healthcare facilities to serve the growing population and evolving health needs of the Territory. The design team (FSC, now Stantec, and Nycum) worked closely with the GN and stakeholders to create functional, productive, and interactive spaces while helping to minimize disturbance and confusion often associated with hospital visits and stays. The rational layout provides clear wayfinding, while optimizing supervision and sightlines, and clearly separates public, semi-public and secure areas of the facility.

External Links:
Qikiqtani General Hospital
Indigenous healthcare facility design, a conversation

The detailed work at Hants Community Hospital began with an in-depth assessment of the existing surgical facilities, which included assessment of existing FF&E and coordination with new equipment and systems being upgraded as part of the project. Following Nycum’s assessment report, a design and construction project was undertaken to refresh the surgical facilities at this regional hospital, greatly increasing the volume of outpatient surgeries able to be performed.

More than doubling the surgical throughput at Hants Community Hospital has meant that 1) local residents are less likely to require travel to a larger centre to receive care; 2) many outpatient surgeries previously performed in tiertiary care facilities in Dartmouth or Halifax can now be performed in Windsor; 3) outpatient surgical processing and scheduling could be streamlined, helping to reduce wait times for routine procedures, and; 4) some services were able to be decanted out of the aging and troubled Centennial building on the QEII Health Sciences Centre campus in Halifax.

In order to support the expansion of surgical services, the entire surgical department was refreshed, clinical facilities were expanded and enhanced, finishes and equipment were updated, and existing deficient fire and life safety systems were brought up to current standards.

While the scope of the project did not enable increasing the size of the existing ORs, emphasis was placed on modifications to allow the existing small ORs to work more efficiently, accommodate broader surgical case types and integrate modern surgical equipment and processes. This was achieved through removal of built-in elements in the rooms, tight integration of equipment and services on the walls and ceilings and conveniently locating services and connections to free up valuable floor space. Motorized retractable service columns, laminar flow ventilation, new surgical lights, a 4K video integration system, as well as seamless wall finishes and green lighting options allow the renovated ORs to be used for an expanded range of procedures in a safer and more efficient manner than before.

Refurbished OR Opens
Next Step in Improving Healthcare for Nova Scotians
Important Piece of the Puzzle

The facility accommodates basic medical services, administrative offices, social services and community health and counseling services and support spaces. Flexible spaces are provided for visiting specialists (physician consultations, dental and eye services, psychological and psychiatric nursery and physical therapy and rehabilitation.

A key project mandate was to create a comfortable and welcoming place for the community to come to during wellness, as well as in times of illness and stress – one that successfully addresses ‘human requirements’ and incorporates elements that contribute to patient/visitor/staff stress reduction through the skillful use of positive distractions (art, culture, colour, texture), acoustics (noise reduction), views, nature, daylight, and ease of wayfinding. The requirements of construction in the Arctic required careful incorporation of the logistics of building in the development of design – one shipment of material per year meant detailed planning and explicit requirements in the Contract Documents.

The building’s organization is compact, simple and logical. Its major zones are organized for efficiency of building envelope, circulation, travel distances and wayfinding. Social services spaces are concentrated at one end of the building, and separated from clinical areas by the main entry zone. The combined centrally located emergency and main entrances and reception/public/waiting areas offers operational and cost efficiencies.

Surrounded by mountains on three sides, Arctic Bay’s landscape is breathtaking. The hamlet enjoys perpetual daylight from May through August, and spectacular winter scenery for the winter months. Opportunities to weave these elements of the community’s identity were incorporated into the building’s interior design – abstractly in the floor patterning, and literally in the application of large multi-panel photographic images from a local photographer. Simple ceiling materials installed in an atypical arrangement allude to the early summer breaking ice in the bay, and add visual interest to the space.

• Change Readiness for New Emergency Department, Aberdeen Regional Hospital. Culture change, process redesign, generation of new SOP and other protocols, scenarios based system and team testing and go-live implementation, New Glasgow, NS, 2017.
• NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program “Experiments in Access” (Role Play Pilot Project). This won a Quality Award at the CDHA annual Quality Summit in an online vote. Halifax, NS, 2013.
• “Working Differently – Sackville”, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Sackville, NS, 2014.
• “Working Differently – Dartmouth”, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Dartmouth, NS, 2014.
• “Working Differently – Simpson Landing”, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Simpson Landing, Woodside, NS, 2014.
• “Working Differently – Halifax”, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Halifax, NS, 2014.
• Halifax HUB re-imagining, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and Integration Program. Halifax, NS, 2014
• HUB Member Orientation and Access Process Change, NSHA Community Mental Health Recovery and integration Program. Halifax, NS, 2014.
• The Spot (Youth Mental Health Arts Program) Strategic Plan Facilitation. Halifax, NS, 2014.
• Windsor Elms Village Culture Change Facilitation. Windsor, NS, 2014 (in partnership with David Green, S.A.G.E.)
• Shiretown Nursing Home. Pictou, NS, 2011. (in partnership with David Green, S.A.G.E.)
• Ivey’s Terrace Nursing Home. Trenton, NS, 2011. (in partnership with David Green, S.A.G.E.)
• New Dawn Enterprises Strategic Plan (in partnership with Lesley Southwick-Trask)
• Election Campaign Strategic Plan Facilitation and Executive Coaching, for Provincial Member of Legislature. Halifax, NS, 2016
• 10-year Strategic Facility Plan for Guyana’s National Psychiatric Service (integrated with policy and training components)
• Sambandh Health Foundation (Delhi, India) – 10 Year Horizon (Strategic Expansion) Plan

Our Strategic Planning methodology focuses on progressive activities, which are divided into 4 phases and led by our team:

Phase I: Identifying Needs & Considerations
This phase focuses on the defining elements, tasks and triggers that lead to the creation of a Strategic Plan. These include: identifying main objectives and contributing pressures, identifying champions and stakeholders, and determining the processes to achieve desired outcomes.

Phase II: Organizing
This phase organizes resources for the Strategic Planning process, including detailed planning and rallying participants to focus on the objectives of a Strategic Plan.

Phase III: The Plan
This phase is implemented through facilitated, open platform session(s), building from activity to activity in a progressive format. This includes environmental scans, SWOT, themes, focus areas, objectives, tasks and implementation strategies. The result of this phase is a Strategic Plan document.

Phase IV: Implementing The Plan
The final phase includes refining the implementation plan, organizing, introducing task responsibility and accountability, and concludes with reflection, an evaluation of effectiveness and renewal of the Strategic Planning process.

The $6m project targeted capital expenditures carefully to introduce new soiled utility rooms and hand hygiene sinks throughout, replace flooring, upgrade patient washrooms, create new distributed Team Control Centres incorporating collaborative workspaces for care teams and provide new centralized Reception and Communication Centres at the entrances to the hospital wings.

Construction work was carefully divided into four major phases to manage patient flow with minimal disruption to the hospital and to control asbestos abatement work, with the first phase completed December 2015.

Team Control Centres utilized the footprints of former patient rooms to provide accessible interface between staff and patients and their families; dedicated space for charting; flexible meeting and collaboration space; suitable area for “bullet rounds,” intense daily meetings involving care teams of 15+; and quiet work space for focused tasks or as temporary “touch down” space for visiting specialists. The team used these Team Control Centres as opportunities to bring natural light deeper into the hospital corridors while managing confidentiality issues with the use of partially frosted interior glass.

The interior colour palette was chosen to provide a full-spectrum environment, with subdued cooler tones in public areas and warmer tones in patient rooms. Staff work spaces and important orientation devices were accented with vibrant colours to bring variety and focus to the spaces. The calm and bright colours in the corridors, coupled with new alcoves that allow equipment to be tucked out of the traffic flow has resulted in a space that feels more open and inviting – staff have actually asked: “how did they manage to move the walls and make the corridor wider?”

Click here to see a CTV News piece published March 24, 2016

To be identifiable as community “houses”, the units of the building wanted to be physically separated, but this would require staff to walk outdoors in the harsh weather on the site. The design managed a delicate compromise that relied heavily on a vernacular “house” form and the management of building scale while maintaining physical indoor connections. A variety of private, semi-private, and group-oriented spaces within the households provides the inhabitants with didactic spaces in which to re-socialize and re-integrate. Patient rooms and shared spaces incorporate several “nodes” of peer-to-peer engagement and rehabilitation stages. This allows patients of varying levels and stages of recovery (for example, with severe anxiety) to utilize the spatial environment as a tool in the management of their recovery.

We wanted to create a place that felt like home. Not a place with all the cute residential trimmings, but rather somewhere that conveys a sense of place with ambition and sincerity.

We wanted to show that it is possible to break down ‘the institution’ in spite of a 150,000 square foot floor area. We wanted residents to feel comfortable calling a nursing home their home, and we recognized that it may very well be the last place they will live.

We were inspired by local vernacular, where civic pride and pride of ownership really stand out in people’s homes, assisted by the tradition of using paint leftover from painting the fishing vessels. We found guidance at Cinqe Terra in Italy, where each home stands out individually in a sea of dwellings, and in Hunterwasser’s apartment buildings in Vienna which reflect tenants’ rights and sense of place in the façades.

While conveying a sense of celebration and joy, the building’s exterior design aims to do what no nursing home has done: to allow each resident to identify their “home” or “place” from the outside. To do this, we believe very strongly that one must be able to easily visually, symbolically and formally demonstrate belonging. The point of the façade design is to be able to say, “See that blue one on the corner, that’s where I live.”

Each resident room is expressed as an image of home. It is easy to find where you live from the outside. The result is a welcoming, lively, celebratory village of homes perched on a hillside. This is a radical departure from the typical institutional nursing home and we are very proud of it.

“Rather than counting windows on a vast façade, residents and their visitors can instantly identify their rooms from the outside, creating a sense of belonging and place.”
-Long Term Living Magazine, Environments for Aging, March 2011

“It is just unbelievably beautiful.”
-Honourable Maureen MacDonald, Minister of Health, April 2010

In addition to gathering the best critical minds in healthcare design, the design team engaged directly with the public, caregivers, nurses, doctors and other front line staff, and administrators to combine design and programming work into a compressed, simultaneous process.

Detailed room-by-room templates were designed to support such current practices as acuity adaptable rooms, modular reconfigurability of inpatient spaces, and flexible and adaptable programming. Nycum teamed up with SmithGroupJJR’s Arizona office to lead design, costing, programming, planning, and economic impact study work for over $600m of new and renovated space.

The large hospital, while part of Dalhousie University Medical Campus, is immediately adjacent to an established residential area in Halifax. The building is set back at the upper levels, and the form is modulated at street level to help the hospital relate to the surrounding residential context.

At the time of design and construction (completed Spring 1992), we developed several innovative solutions that paved the way for many strategies that are now becoming best practice for healthcare facilities:

• Daylight and views to promote well-being and faster healing – now one of the tenets of Evidence Based Design. We believed that paitient-centred care meant that a mother should be able to see out a window from her bed. In order to do this, window sills had to be lowered, requiring trips to manufacturers across North America to prototype and patent lower profile wall-mount radiators. A large atrium in the heart of the building provides daylit waiting space for clinics and services – careful design work resolved potential fire spread issues and allows the atrium to provide light to offices and treatment/consulting spaces deep in the floor plan.
• Access to fresh air and sunlight for expectant and new mothers and staff. Balconies on the building, accessible from staff or common areas, provide release from the medical environment, providing positive distractions for patients, care providers, and visitors alike.
• The x-shaped floor plan of the upper floors of this building (the patient wings) provides efficient connections for care providers and staff and promotes wayfinding for patients and families who may be in high-stress emotional states.
• We implemented a steel stub girder system with a 42-foot by 42-foot grid spanning diagonally across the 30-foot by 30-foot reinforced concrete grid of the podium. The mechanical services level is placed directly above the highly serviced intensive care units, operating rooms and labour and delivery rooms and directly below the inpatient tower. This eliminates all avoiding interior columns and duct shafts in the patient wings. This is significant, because it provides maximum functional flexibility, allowing the interior organization to be re-worked, adapting to new care delivery procedures or new services.

From The Chronicle-Herald, Halifax, May 27, 1992: “The cost per square foot came in below average for any hospital built in the province recently, [John Malcom] says. ‘It is a good buy.’ And some innovations in the design … will result in cost savings.”
-John Malcom, Former Administrator of Health Care Institutions, Nova Scotia Department of Health

Five camper cabins (two insulated for winter use) are spread across the site, and complemented with a dining hall, medical treatment centre, administrative offices, staff cabins, arts facilities, and learning activity spaces. Groups rent the camp from Brigadoon and tailor their programs for their target campers. The facility provides the support and flexibility to provide for camps ranging from Crohn’s/Colitis to Cancer.

This project is the fusion of the ultimate fun summer camp experience with a solid backbone of medical infrastructure. The design is a sensitive blend of staffing and medical support strategies with an approachable and exciting architectural backdrop. The campus design accommodates multiple camp “tenants”: each with unique restrictions, management styles and staff complements. The camp had to be designed to be instantly flexible and adaptable to each organization while maintaining core medical, nutritional, programmatic and safety services and spaces.

Fundamental to the camper cabin design is the ability for one staff member to supervise 24 campers. This allows other staff to have a break or conduct vital planning work. A scheme was devised where a great room provides a central observation point with view into each cabin space. At the same time, the beneficial dynamics of camp such as age grouping, friendship forming, and peer interaction supports small groups of six to eight. Within each cabin of 24, mini cabins have autonomous space and identity within the larger cabin building, allowing group identity and solidarity to take hold among these smaller accommodations.

“This camp is so good that it might be worth having Crohn’s to go to!”
-Vince Rochette, Camp Guts and Glory, 2011

As the geopolitical circumstances of the project site fell deeper into uncertainty for the new 1000-bed facility, Nycum was called upon to create an interim program and renovation concept plan for a Mental Health inpatient facility to be housed in army barracks nearby. This facility would be able to provide services while the new 1000-bed facility was being constructed.

We adapted our approved program and concept plan to fit the existing barrack structures with a minimum amount of renovation, proving the adaptability and flexibility of the original unit design philosophy. This project includes renovations to a former Syrian Army dormitory as part of the design and is currently awaiting regional stability before proceeding to the next phase.

Many strategies were used to minimize the institutional feel of a nursing home while providing a residential atmosphere for residents.