The Campus of Care: An Ecosystem Approach to Non-Institutional Senior Living in the Urban Core

The Rekai Centre at Cherry Place, Campus of Care, is a long-term care home in downtown Toronto that challenges the institutional stereotype by prioritising resident dignity, identity, and wellness through experiential design and urban integration.

Centred on the Campus of Care, this project integrates healthcare, education, inclusivity, and community connection. Situated in a vibrant mixed-use neighbourhood close to the waterfront, this ‘first-of-its-kind’ facility positions seniors in the heart of a vital and emerging urban area and serves as a model for designing for resilience and community integration in the healthcare sector.

This paper will explore how non-institutional architecture and ‘domestic-scale’ elements, including smaller room clusters, natural light, and the Rainbow Wing for 2SLGBTQI+ seniors, foster a sense of belonging and community connection. Further, the wayfinding programme presented a fascinating design challenge of creating a space that feels like home while still meeting rigorous institutional standards and codes. Traditional healthcare wayfinding, with its reliance on conspicuous institutional signage would not create the desired outcome.

Strategic wayfinding tools that support person-focused, home-like familiarity – elements that demonstrate improved outcomes and are particularly important for those living with cognitive decline – needed to be thoughtfully considered. We will discuss strategies for designing a familiar, welcoming, home environment that incorporates solutions for linear wayfinding needs (strategically placed signage and wayfinding information) with the support of well co-ordinated spatial wayfinding elements (architectural features, murals, and bright colours) to ensure an intuitive user journey. Strategies that make the environment more accessible and engaging will be a focus: use of effective contrast ratios, font size, colour, pictograms, signage placement, and material selection.

The Rekai Centre at Cherry Place also delivers health and wellbeing through greater collaboration of multiple interconnected partners. It provides community town hall space to facilitate meetings/events, culturally sensitive services, innovative healthcare solutions, and learning opportunities, along with a dialysis clinic and lab services open to the public, and a partnership with Humber College for a co-op training programme, embedding it into the community fabric. This symbiotic relationship increases neighbourhood density, creates jobs, and integrates residents into a diverse, stimulating environment, directly combating the isolation often faced in conventional models.

The Rekai Centre's goal is to establish a superior model for healthcare design through their compact, 13-storey Campus of Care. This project demonstrates a powerful ecosystem approach to effectively combine and deliver care services, while actively promoting the development of healthy, interconnected communities.

More info about EHD 2026: https://www.europeanhealthcaredesign.eu/