The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Temerty Discovery Centre

The  Temerty Discovery Centre is a 385,000-square-foot research facility being  delivered on CAMH’s active Queen Street West campus. The project combines the  demanding requirements of a laboratory and mental health research environment  with ambitious sustainability goals, a constrained urban site, heritage  protections and a complex structural program.

No single organization could solve these challenges independently. PCL, CAMH, KPMB Architects/Treanor HL, Blackwell Structural Engineers, Affiliated  Engineers Inc., Aecon Group Inc. and Element 5 needed to coordinate thousands  of design decisions and field activities while keeping information current  across company boundaries. The team also had to integrate uncommon systems,  including a 75-borehole geothermal field, mass timber, BubbleDeck void-form  slabs, low-activation mass concrete and specialized building services.

Each innovation introduced new interfaces and risks. The geothermal field  had to be sequenced beside excavation, shoring and a heritage wall. BubbleDeck placement left little tolerance for conflicts with conduits, sleeves, reinforcement and columns, while the specified restraint concept was  not practical for live concrete placement. Mass concrete pours required careful thermal control to avoid cracking. At the same time, the project needed secure workforce access, real-time site oversight and reliable  document control.

The central challenge was not simply technical. The team needed to create an integrated, digitally enabled way for diverse partners to plan, test,  communicate and solve problems together.

The  project team created an integrated delivery approach that combined a shared  digital environment with early planning, model-based coordination, physical mock-ups and rapid cross-company decision-making. Autodesk Forma served as a  common data environment for drawings, documents and field information. BIM played an integral part through coordination, 4D planning, sequencing and constructability reviews.

This approach was applied directly to major project challenges. During  preconstruction, PCL and project partners collaborated to plan the location and sequencing of the geothermal field while accounting for excavation activities, shoring requirements and the protection of adjacent heritage  infrastructure. For the mass timber and BubbleDeck floors, structural, mechanical and electrical teams overlaid conduits, sleeves, reinforcement and void locations before installation, verified through coordination digital  process with PCL BIM automated script files. When the specified hold-down concept proved impractical, PCL engineered two restraint methods suited to  cross-laminated timber and reusable fly forms, limiting sacrificial formwork  and preventing voids from floating during concrete placement.

For the cyclotron bunker’s mass concrete, the team combined thermal analysis, low-activation concrete design and embedded digital sensors to  monitor heat gain and manage cracking risk. Job Site Access turnstiles digitized worker access and workforce data, while Latium Technologies’ connected AI security solution strengthened remote monitoring and site awareness.

Together, these processes created a continuous loop: plan digitally, test  through models and mock-ups, align partners, execute in the field and verify  performance with real-time data.