CAMH recently announced the completion of the third phase of the Queen Street Redevelopment Project with the opening of the McCain Complex Care & Recovery Building and the Crisis & Critical Care Building. Now, the hospital is advancing a vision for a new state-of-the-art research centre that will accelerate mental health science as a critical patient service in the fourth and final phase of its Redevelopment Project.
As Canada’s leading academic centre dedicated to mental health, CAMH is working to answer the most difficult questions about mental illness. Fewer new preventions and treatments for mental illness have been advanced over the past decades than for other chronic illnesses with comparatively major impacts. There is a significant need to improve our collective understanding of the underlying mechanisms of mental illness.
To close the discovery gap and spur innovations that will lead to more options and better care, CAMH’s world-leading researchers have focused on revolutionizing our understanding of the brain and the causes, biomarkers and treatments of mental illness.
To build on CAMH’s discoveries related to treatment-resistant depression, PTSD and pharmacogenetics, deeper convergence is required. CAMH researchers need new structures, platforms and spaces to inspire the collaboration that will enable the next frontier of life-changing discovery across disciplines.
To accelerate progress, CAMH’s Redevelopment Project has long-envisioned a new, world-leading mental health research centre at the Queen Street site—a state-of-the-art facility custom-built for mental health research where the world’s best minds use the most advanced technologies, and where scientists, clinicians, patients and families build better tomorrows together.
“Our vision for research at CAMH is to inspire hope by discovering the causes of and cures for mental illness,” said Dr. Aristotle Voineskos, Chief of the Schizophrenia Division, and incoming Vice President, Research. “A new research centre would further ignite collaboration within our research community, transporting new ideas throughout the hospital, and then around the world.”
CAMH has been transforming the Queen Street site for more than a decade—fulfilling a vision for a physically integrated and co-located organization where patients receive care and recover alongside researchers discovering new treatments and preventions, clinicians learning the caring skills of tomorrow, and community members and champions co-creating the mental health movement.
“At its essence, the redevelopment project is the product of a vision to transform our 27-acre Queen Street site—home of the original Provincial Asylum built in 1850 and hidden behind large brick walls—into a place of hope for the future of mental health care and research,” says Dr. Catherine Zahn, President and CEO of CAMH. “Our progress has been nothing short of historic. And now, with renewed energy and zeal, we turn our attention to the final phase that will realize our vision in its totality.”
With three phases of the redevelopment now complete, new private and dignified patient recovery spaces are transforming care, new educational spaces are facilitating knowledge exchange and green space and public art is inviting the community in. Now, KPMB Architects is being recognized for a vision for the future Research Centre that would co-locate the majority of CAMH’s world-class research enterprise at the Queen Street site.
New discoveries change the course of many lives. CAMH’s vision will enable answers to our most difficult questions about mental illness and change the trajectory of recovery forever—right at Queen and Ossington.