Projects
Moving people through a holistic wayfinding approach
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Wayfinding masterplanning | Donor recognition | Standards complianceThe Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is Canada’s largest mental health teaching hospital. CAMH drives innovative research, provides expert training to healthcare professionals, and advocates for social change. Working alongside Stantec and Acumen Visual Group, we developed a holistic wayfinding approach at CAMH’s Queen Street site to fully integrate two new CAMH campus buildings – Building B1 (McCain Complex Care & Recovery Building) and Building D1 (Crisis & Critical Care Building).
Creating a sense of belonging.
The wayfinding program uses critical campus points to help patients, workers and visitors reach their intended destinations safely and with clarity throughout the day. Signage recognizing the generous donors and their contributions is celebrated proudly in the newly built Crisis & Critical Care and McCain Complex Care & Recovery buildings.
WELCOMING THE COMMUNITY
The interior signage program for the new CAMH campus buildings improves the movement of people throughout the space, as patients, visitors and staff have the tools they require to self-navigate the buildings. The signage welcomes the community and encourages people to utilize the building’s resources.
Vibrant murals featuring hand-drawn characters accompanied the written words of donors at the Ossington and Queen Street Campus. A wall for each department – representing the patients, the caregivers and the staff at CAMH – was thoughtfully designed and placed the patient’s unique journey at the forefront of one’s experience.
The intuitive signage program uses colour to highlight the CAMH brand, and reinforce the commitment to excellence in patient care, research, education and community. The sign program integrates architectural landmarks and highlights the therapeutic art placed throughout the campus. All these design choices emphasize visual cues for ease of navigation.
Forge worked closely with all teams to ensure the signage was a holistic and fully integrated experience that worked with the architecture. All wayfinding elements connecting the new buildings to existing ones share a visual language. Our team used CAMH’s current brand standard and wayfinding packages as a foundation to build a framework for our proposed designs.