A Thousand Moments of Care
With dignity and grace, Siamak Hariri is humanizing healthcare environments.
My pulse quickens. As I reach for the door, I notice my palms are starting to sweat. A familiar unease rises from the pit of my stomach, fomented in a haze of vague childhood memories and — more recently — the gurney ballet of a pre-operative procedure. I’m stepping into a hospital. It conjures a mental landscape of taupe walls, chemical smells and labyrinthine hallways. Drop ceilings. Fluorescent lights. But the environment I find on the other side of the revolving doors is a world apart. Even in the physical distancing era of masks and Plexiglas partitions, to step into Toronto’s revitalized Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (PMCC) is to be embraced by an unexpected intimacy. Siamak Hariri is waiting for me inside. The founding partner of Toronto firm Hariri Pontarini Architects led a 3,778-square-metre reinvention that transformed the whole of the hospital’s ground floor, and created an oasis-like area on the second storey (HPA was design architect and NORR Architects & Engineers was prime consultant and architect of record on the project). Past the temporary COVID-19 check-in booths, we take in a space furnished in natural wood, soft lighting, terrazzo flooring and bronze accents. There is an entrance lounge with a fireplace that — even in the midst of a pandemic — implies an invitation to linger and rest. And that’s just what patients are doing. As we weave through a sequence of spaces deftly carved through the heart of the busy hospital, the ceiling’s wooden baffles gently modulating the ambient din, a sense of quiet hospitality pervades. This isn’t your typical healthcare setting, but then, Hariri isn’t your typical healthcare architect. A renowned Canadian practitioner whose métier spans from residential and cultural buildings to the stunning Bahá’í Temple of South America in Santiago, Chile, the architect is quietly charting a course in patient-centred healthcare design. It began with a smaller-scale but remarkable work — Casey House, Canada’s only stand-alone hospital for people living with HIV/AIDS — and is evolving into mega-hospital projects including the upcoming BARLO MS Centre at St. Michael’s Hospital and this seminal achievement, the just-opened Princess Margaret refurbishment.