The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health’s (CAMH) McCain Complex Care and Recovery Centre and the Crisis and Critical Care Building and Mackenzie Health’s Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital have received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification, for sustainability-minded construction.
Both projects utilize materials, green spaces, and design strategies prioritizing sustainable outcomes, and are design-built by PCL Constructors Canada Inc. The McCain Complex Care and Recovery Centre and the Crisis and Critical Care Building are positioned prominently on CAMH’s Queen Street frontage, bringing these LEED Gold-certified buildings into focus on Canada’s largest mental health teaching hospital. The redevelopment project earned 66 points under the LEED v2009 New Construction Rating System. Preserving green spaces and environmental stewardship were crucial to CAMH’s ‘Green on Queen’ vision for the new buildings. Highlights include:
- A 17,000-m2 (182986-sf) green roof and vegetated space, accounting for 62 per cent of the site area.
- Drought-tolerant plants and high-efficiency irrigation system that reduce potable water consumption for irrigation by 100 per cent.
- Responsibly harvested wood throughout the building, with 98 per cent of all wood materials certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
- Furniture meeting specified chemical content and environmental attributes; a feature that exceeded LEED Gold requirements and met LEED v4 requirements.
- A highly efficient building envelope focusing on minimizing thermal bridging and optimizing solar heat gains.
While facing unanticipated challenges during the peak of the global pandemic in August 2020, PCL reached substantial completion on Mackenzie Health’s Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, the City of Vaughan’s first hospital. Embracing energy efficiency and sustainability in the hospital’s planning, design and construction, Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital achieved LEED Silver certification earning 54 points. Highlights include:
- Extensive visible green roofs enhancing views from inside and outside the building and contributing to the project’s sustainability goals.
- Larger patient room windows optimizing energy performance and allowing plenty of natural light.
- Total waste of 90.39 per cent diverted on-site during construction.
- Low-emitting materials including adhesives, sealants, paints, and flooring systems.
- Landscaping with planting and hardscape materials, including terraced gardens with stone retaining walls.
“Achieving LEED in health care adds to the complexity of both the design and construction. On the design side, we often wrestle with architecture and energy models to find the right advanced energy systems and varied materials to hit the LEED targets,” says Stephen Montgomery, sustainability advisor, mechanical and electrical pursuits manager. “The resulting design contains more, and often new, components, parts and building techniques that must have complete plans for procurement, quality, commissioning, and turnover. The construction planning starts with design and does not end until the hospital is fully operational.”
