Sheppard Medical Building

Riley Snelling

• Architects

Sheppard Medical Centre is a place of care, serving both its immediate community as well as individuals seeking specialized treatments. Designed according to “Human Centric” principles, the architecture reflects the ambitions of the clients, creating a salutogenic, holistic centre for wellness.

The project is a two-storey, 7000 SF medical office building with rear surface parking on Sheppard Avenue East in North York, Toronto. Providing a host of services, this new medical building aims to contribute, with a positive impact, to the well-being of communities and individuals.

photo_credit Riley Snelling — Riley Snelling

The building mass is split into two programmatic boxes: retail and clinical. The ground floor offers retail opportunities and the upper floor accommodates a dermatology and laser clinic, and medical offices.

The architecture expresses the program. The upper mass is shifted to the south and to the west. The south-shift creates a one-storey retail podium along the main street, allowing the building to appropriately fit within the neighbouring residential bungalow context. The west-shift frames the entrance to the rear parking and integrates the driveway into the building while creating an outdoor terrace for the second floor where the clinic resides. And, moreover, the terrace offers the implementation of a “green roof” that wraps around the building.

The building frontage - which includes planters, bike racks and seating - promotes an enhanced streetscape and public realm, further integrating the building into the overall urban fabric. The super-scaled glazed walls extend the streetscape frontage into the retail units and lobby which promotes activity and connectivity. The recessed and angled entrance with a canopy above invites pedestrians into the building.

The building is carefully accented with certain elements and materials, extending the exterior environment into the interior spaces. Exterior precast concrete panels cladding continues to the interior walls of the lobby, and dark paving tiles cover the path and carry the visitors forward into the building. The varied spacing of the façade tiled cladding is also continued through to the medical clinic reception and waiting area, giving a unified language to the overall building design. With the double height lobby space - visible from the ground floor entrance lobby - the second level continues the design elements, unifying the two floors in a cohesive architectural language. With primarily concrete panels cladding and strategically located windows expressed in vertical manner, the upper mass provides necessary privacy aligned with the clinical program.