Architectural Record: A Hariri Pontarini–Designed Toronto Clinic Provides a Calming Ambience

Dr. Jiwon Oh passed through the waiting room of the BARLO MS Centre and saw a patient whose appointment at the multiple sclerosis clinic wasn’t for a couple of hours. “I assumed it was a mistake,” the neurologist and head of the facility recalls. “But, no: he told me, ‘I wanted to come early, just to spend some time in the space.’ ”

Health-care environments rarely prompt that sort of reaction. But BARLO—which occupies 30,000 square feet on the two top floors of the 17-story Peter Gilgan Patient Care Tower of St. Michael’s Hospital (recently completed by the a/e firm NORR) —is an exception. The interior’s design, by Hariri Pontarini Architects (HPA), provides a calming atmosphere that evokes a high-end hotel.

We provided structural design services for the healthcare facility, which opened in 2020.

Read more at Architectural Record