The new Guelph Transitional Housing at 65 Delhi St., Guelph Ont. The renovation was designed by +VG The Ventin Group.David Lasker Photography
The 1911 Georgian building at 65 Delhi St. in Guelph, Ont., is just as it should be. Its windows are balanced and symmetrical, its ornamentation minimal save for fan windows, keystones and sturdy quoins. Were it to tell us how it’s feeling, it would likely say: “All is in Order, all is Calm.”
Until a troubled person rounds the corner, perhaps uttering a string of four-letter expletives and tossing two parked bicycles to the ground before yanking open the door and being swallowed up by Order.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of mental-health issues here,” says architect and CEO Paul Sapounzi of +VG The Ventin Group as he shakes his head quietly. “And drug use comes with that.”
As calming as Georgian architecture can be, the staff inside the new transitional housing facility will absorb and deal with the mental-health issues of clients who are housed here. And, given the amount of time people are allowed to live here – up to three years – there will be healing, too.
“I have a real soft spot, a real affinity to mental-health issues,” Mr. Sapounzi continues. “And I think it’s a safe, wonderful place; and it’s not some institutional place, it’s actually a place that provides a lot of dignity to people as well.”
The 1911 building, once a hospital for tuberculosis patients, was gifted to the City of Guelph by the County of Wellington.David Lasker Photography
Mr. Sapounzi should know, since he was the designer charged with taking Guelph’s old, underused isolation hospital (for tuberculosis patients), and turning it into a 28-room respite for folks needing to get off the street and get grounded. That he was gifted with a heritage asset by the City of Guelph, as well as funding from the County of Wellington, was an added bonus. And even though the “virtually abandoned” building was in “pretty rough shape,” the architect wasn’t fazed – he’s worked on heritage buildings in dozens of municipalities, large and small, all over the province.
“We have to be creative about how we use heritage buildings,” he says. “They can’t all be museums, they can’t all be government offices … renovate them liberally.”
The 28 units have a charming, hotel-room vibe: soft colours on walls and ceiling; nice furniture and a welcome kit containing toiletries and a notebook.David Lasker Photography
He’s right. Often, heritage preservationists – and I include myself in that group – will throw up their arms when an unconventional use is proposed for a heritage building. That new floor plan will require too much intervention! Important details will be lost! This or that user group won’t appreciate heritage! But I’d rather see crown moulding removed for new room or floor layouts (with, perhaps, a small percentage saved) than a building sit forlorn, unused and basically forgotten.
Besides, good heritage architects – and +VG are very good – can enhance our appreciation of heritage by creating new vistas. The isolation hospital was odd in that it was set back very far from the sidewalk – behind its near-twin No. 55 Delhi St., in fact – so its porches and front doors were not only unwelcoming, they were practically invisible. The rear façade, however, was open to a big parking lot within view of Eramosa Road. So, by removing a clunky, cinder block, one-storey addition that had filled in the original C-shape, Mr. Sapounzi was able to give the building a new front door within a crisp, new administration wing, while repurposing the heritage portion for residential units.
Inside, the transitional spaces delight by revealing peek-a-boos of old brick or filled-in windows under window sills. Some windows march up the wall following invisible stairs while a few original wood staircases still serve their purpose of getting occupants up and down, along with new sets of stairs and elevators.
Our little group, which includes photographer David Lasker, stands in a common area – which includes a television set, bookshelf, lounge chairs and a kitchen area – and admires the abstract pattern the bricked-in windows make while Kelsie Strub, a mental-health worker with Thresholds Homes and Supports (operators of the building), describes a typical day: “We also do a sharing circle up here with our Indigenous workers. … We’re partnered with Crow Shield Lodge. Jess is outside doing some smudging with a client right now.
“We do cooking classes on Tuesdays and Fridays, just trying to make sustainable meals that they’d enjoy. So, for example, yesterday we made pancakes; last week we made quesadillas.”
Ms. Strub opens the door to one of six remaining empty units (the facility opened four months ago) and we’re taken aback by its charming, hotel room vibe: soft colours on walls and ceiling; nice furniture; a homey quilt from Royal City Mission folded neatly on the bed; and a welcome kit containing toiletries and a notebook. But we also note the tough materials palette that allows people to storm in and finish an anger episode.
“Your brain has to flip over in this kind of building and think about it as a hospital, as a very durable place, very functional,” Mr. Sapounzi offers thoughtfully. “The community doesn’t want you to make it too nice, either, they’re very critical; we had opposition about this facility and it doesn’t bother anybody, it’s in an institutional area.”
The interiors have been cleaned, repointed and structurally reinforced, but heritage elements have been kept in place.David Lasker Photography
At that, however, +VG has failed: 65 Delhi St. is very nice indeed. Cleaned, repointed, structurally reinforced, added to expertly (since the passerby can easily tell what is new and what is old), and given a noble purpose. Inside is bright and welcoming. A precarious old building now stabilized and saved so it can save precarious people … which is just as it should be.
“We have millions of empty square feet in Toronto, and we’re not using that for purposes like this.”