Intelligent Integration

CannonDesign + NEUF architect(e)s lifts the veil on Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), the largest healthcare construction project in North America.

- Martin teo

After nearly a decade of work on the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), CannonDesign + NEUF architect(e)s has finally unveiled the outcome. Now nearing completion of its first phase, the project, which is one of the largest healthcare projects in the world, is the largest public-private partnership (P3) healthcare project in Canadian history, set to revitalise an entire sector of Montréal’s urban core.

Designed to achieve LEED Silver certification, the CHUM complex will include 772 single-bed patient rooms, 39 operating theatres and more than 400 clinics and examination rooms. Beyond the logistical scope of merging three aging hospitals – St-Luc, Hôtel-Dieu and Notre-Dame - under one roof, the CHUM project is a prime example of thoughtful architecture solving highly complex problems, with social infrastructure and urban renewal as integral components to its design. The 22-storey complex, spanning over three million square feet and encompassing two full city blocks, will play an important role in regenerating the neglected East-end of Montreal’s downtown core, reconnecting the city’s urban fabric, and anchoring the Quartier de la Santé, Montreal’s new healthcare district. In addressing the totality of that task, the design team approached the project from all scales, including the large-scale urban element, the local neighbourhood context and the fine grain of a human component, central to its vocation as a place of healing.

Progressive track