All-woman team engineers safe haven
Architects and builders oversee construction of innovative Orillia shelter
The thought of designing a space for abused women fleeing for their lives weighs heavily on Toronto architect Gail Borthwick.
How do you restore a sense of security — and control? Build a feeling of warmth and community? And do it on a tight budget?
These are the challenges facing Borthwick, and what may be the first all-female team of engineers, architects and contractors leading the construction of a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
“The team just naturally fell into place,” says Borthwick, project lead and principal with Stantec, a global design firm that is overseeing development of the new Green Haven Women’s Shelter in Orillia, Ont.
“It happens so rarely in our industry,” she says amid the exposed brick, wood beams and large windows of the former McGregor Socks factory on Spadina Ave. that is one of the firm’s two Toronto offices. “There are some men involved, but it’s women-led.”
The $6.23-million project that broke ground in August is slated to open in the spring of 2020.
The women’s leadership offers a level of comfort that became apparent from the team’s first design meeting with Green Haven in Orillia last summer, Borthwick says.
“That conversation was much more intimate and personal” than it would have been had there been men in the room, she said. “We all understood because we were women.”
Green Haven’s original 13-bed shelter in a renovated four-bedroom house in downtown Orillia has been serving up to 200 women and children a year since 1991.
But the facility, which also offers counselling, court support and other programs for some 400 women in the community, is inaccessible and too small to meet the needs of the city of about 30,000 and its surrounding rural area, which takes in cottage country as well as First Nations reserves at Rama, Beausoleil and Christian Island, says Liz Westcott, Green Haven’s executive director.
Between 35 and 40 per cent of women who use the shelter have Indigenous ancestry, she adds.
“We outgrew our current location the day we moved in,” Westcott says. “We are always looking for group meeting space in places like church basements. And this isn’t always the safest way to operate.”
The current shelter also lacks parking — on the misguided assumption that only low-income women, who can’t afford cars, would need the services of a shelter, she says.
“When we opened, we discov- ered a lot of women were living in their cars, as it was the only viable route to safety. It was a vital part of their lives we hadn’t even considered,” Westcott says. “We ended up having to hide their cars at the police station, back lots and behind arenas.”
The new shelter, in a residential part of town near an elementary school, will have room for parking away from the street, as well as a children’s playground. It will be accessible, with meeting space and staff offices on the second floor. The women’s residence will be on the main floor with 15 beds in nine rooms designed as family suites to allow maximum flexibility for women on their own or mothers with children. The neighbours — many of whom are seniors — already know about the shelter, Westcott says.
“We are looking to create a more open relationship with our neighbourhood and asking them to work with us to keep women safe,” she says. “So it’s less of a secret.”
Design priorities — security, comfort, privacy and safety — were clear from the team’s first meeting with shelter staff, says Olivia Keung, design architect for the project.
“Even when we got to a point where we had to slash budgets because we were a little over, those were the things that we would not compromise on,” she says.
The 14,000-square-foot building on a 1.23-acre sloping lot is designed with both physical and emotional security in mind.
The exterior will be brick and with no windows facing the street to give women privacy and a sense of security. Exterior doors are designed with no handles and will always be locked and monitored by security cameras, Keung says.
“It was really important that we have great canopies at the entrance to announce you are here, but also in a safe space,” she says.
The interior design is equally important.
“The most important space in the building is the family room where women can gather and cook and be together and support each other,” she says.
The multi-purpose space upstairs where women from the community will be able to receive counselling and other support is also being designed to be welcoming and nurturing, Keung adds. “We wanted these spaces filled with daylight, warm and easy to access. Places people will want to use.”
Bertram Construction, the general contractor chosen by Stantec to oversee construction, is a local women-led firm. And an area landscaper, Parklane Landscapes, is also run by a woman who will incorporate Indigenous themes in the design, Westcott says.
“With Truth and Reconciliation, we really have an obligation to honour those who have so much to teach us,” she says. “We’re building our landscaping theme on the medicine wheel and looking at ways that will help to promote healing.” During November’s Women Abuse Prevention Month, Green Haven is selling purple scarves — a symbol of the courage it takes for women to leave their abusers — to raise awareness and $1 million for furnishings and a security system for the new shelter.
For Stantec and the women leading the project from Toronto, it has been an enriching and meaningful experience, says Borthwick.
“In a big corporate firm, we don’t always have projects that have this much soul.”
“In a big corporate firm, we don’t always have projects that have this much soul.”
GAIL BORTHWICK PROJECT LEAD, STANTEC