Mall makeover – enhancing a sense of community and culture at Queen Street

Imagination, hard work and a few resources can make a big difference in peoples’ lives – and CAMH’s new-look Paul Christie Community Centre at Queen the Street site, aka ‘The Mall’ proves the point.

What was once a barren and uninviting space now provides an interesting, focused and very useful place where clients, staff, volunteers and visitors can meet, mix and mingle.

Tested Mettle, a site-specific artwork by Jan Swinburne that was commissioned by CAMH through Workman Arts. See sidebar below for more details about this work of art.

“I did a lot of work with clients, finding out what they liked and didn’t like,” said Jackie Monders of City Design, the Mall’s designer. “The mandate was to make things ‘gentler’, bring in a natural ambience and make it less industrial. With the sunlight from the high windows, it was rather a natural progression to take the theme of a park and bring it indoors, which what we sought to achieve here.”

The new look Mall has blue hanging banners the colour of a summer sky, potted trees and park-like umbrella-shaded tables configured to break up the flow of foot traffic through the space and provide clients with the opportunity to sit together and intermingle. A visual focus comes from the commissioned art by Jan Swinburne, which hangs on the outside wall of the Consumer/Survivor Information Resource Centre office.

The redesign of the Mall is part of the First Impressions Project, guided by the Shared Public Spaces report prepared as part of CAMH’s redevelopment plans. The Mall upgrade got a big boost following the success of the upgrade to CAMH's College Street site lobby.

Pushed by the fact that the Administration Building and its common space is being torn down early next year, the Mall will be the heart of the CAMH community during the next phase of the redevelopment.

The Mall is now home to the innovative CLIC! (Client Internet Centre) where clients can access free internet work stations, PACU (Provincial Alliance Credit Union), the Out of This World cafe, and the Consumer/Survivor Information Resource Centre, letting clients access jobs, financial services, community information and support. The Mall is also home to many different types of events, from fashion shows to all-staff meetings.

Jackie Monders of City Design, the Mall’s designer.

Tested Mettle sets new tone for The Mall

A centre-piece to CAMH’s new-look Mall is Tested Mettle, a site-specific artwork by Jan Swinburne that was commissioned by CAMH through Workman Arts and unveiled at CAMH’s Annual Meeting last spring.

Tested Mettle is a triptych (a set of three panels) consisting of wall mounted steel modified with acrylic mediums, pigments and oxidization. The dimension of each panel is five feet in width and eight feet in height. The piece weighs in at approximately 600 pounds.

“Like most of my recent work, I create works that avail themselves to the ambient and random properties of light,” Jan wrote in her artist’s statement.

“Materials, like human beings, have paradoxical and idiosyncratic behaviours. I have utilized these properties to stimulate lateral narratives. These are based on specific dichotomies such as strength and vulnerability. The work intends to highlight aesthetic values as the subjective experience of perception and submission to collective accord.”

“Persistence. Compassion. Acknowledgement. In the end of we’re all Tested Mettle.”

“The change is incredible,” says CAMH Employment Works! Coordinator Diana Capponi. Diana, Policy, Education and Health Promotion Operations Director Mannye Gitterman and Susan Pigott, Vice-President of Communications and Community Engagement for CAMH, were responsible for spearheading the transformation. “The energy in the space is so much healthier. The change sends a real message of caring to our clients,” says Diana. “I see clinicians meeting with clients and family members in the Mall now, and the Empowerment Council has taken to meeting there too.”

“The best compliment I received was from a client who came up to me after the changes had been made,” said designer Jackie Monders. “He said to me, ‘Sitting here makes me feel happy now’.”

Helen Hook of the Consumer/Survivor Information Resource Centre says, “People love the look. I think it’s a great investment, a tangible example of the care we offer at CAMH. We’ve experienced a tremendous growth in demand for counselling, job and housing advice since the redesign.”

Mall makeover – enhancing a sense of community and culture at Queen Street

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