The David Braley Cardiac, Vascular and Stroke Research Institute is a healthcare research facility, situated on the Hamilton General Hospital site. Newly built, it has six-stories filled with office space, meeting rooms, breakout spaces, collaborative areas, experimental pathology and wet laboratories.

A tailored environment for tailored research

The centre is home to two world-renowned research groups.

• The Population Health Research Institute (PHRI): The team conduct clinical trials regarding cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. It also examines the influence that society has on health, such as ethnicity and geography.
• The Thrombosis and Atherosclerosis Research Institute (TaARI):  Conducts stroke research, specifically vascular disease and blood clots.

The building created a space where these two teams can work side by side for the first time. As a result, there are areas to gather, share ideas and exchange knowledge. Home to 400 research personnel, we were especially careful to create as many opportunities for creative collisions as possible.

Adjacent to the site, we designed Canada’s largest biobank.  Its design is technical and and intricate, designed to store and preserve more than 1.8 million tissue and genetic research samples. The biobank materials are used in the research at the David Braley research facility.

We were responsible for the building envelope of the Centre. Parkin Architects was responsible for the building interior.

Integrated Project Delivery

The project, in partnership with EllisDon, involved a hybrid version of the Integrated Project Delivery method of construction delivery. We have worked with EllisDon on multiple projects, including Hamilton City Hall, undertaken with an IPDish approach. The process encouraged an integrated and highly cooperative approach as we all worked through the project with the goal of achieving savings on our clients’ behalf while maintaining design excellence. IPD is a strong compliment for our firm’s cultural approach, rooted in an inclusive Integrated Design Process which further promotes the thoughtful delivery of sustainable results on our clients behalf.