Maison des Aînés de Châteauguay

In response to the Ministère de la Santé et des services sociaux (MSSS), the Provencher_Roy / Cardin Julien consortium developed a long-term care housing concept in Châteauguay, in the Montérégie-Ouest sector. The objective: to create a living space that resembles a large shared house accommodating the elderly and individuals with significant loss of autonomy. The Maison des aînés is therefore composed of 10 “households,” comprised of groups of rooms linked to numerous common spaces.

Conceived as a continuum of the home (a small community neighbourhood), the new Maison des aînés de la Montérégie-Ouest consists of 120 rooms spanning 3 levels. These rooms are divided into 10 households (and 5 support units), including 8 households (96 rooms) dedicated to the elderly and 2 households (24 rooms) designed for adults with significant loss of autonomy. The building’s two volumes are connected by a central core housing the main entrance and vertical circulation. The presence of a childcare centre on the first floor with a capacity for 80 children serves to create an intergenerational environment. 

The Maison des aînés was designed around two private gardens, conveying the intimate and domestic character of the households. Shared spaces and rooms are situated on the periphery of the three levels of these pleasant green spaces opening onto public spheres (the intersection of Rue Principale and Boulevard Rousseau to the south, and Rue Boileau to the north). The extension of the gardens onto the various neighbouring streets creates an alternation between vegetated and built space, setting the tone for reading the project from the perspective of the public road. 

The main entrance of the Maison des aînés and of the childcare centre, in addition to the visitor parking lot, are located along Boulevard Rousseau, a quieter street than Rue Principale. This visitor access location offers increased security for residents and their loved ones, in addition to highlighting the alignment of existing trees along the Boulevard. Meanwhile, the space between Rue Principale and Rue Boileau accommodates employee parking lots and the 2 drop-off zones, ensuring that trucks remain far away from the visitors’ entrance. 

The project’s envelope was conceived to easily differentiate the private nature of residents’ rooms from the collective nature of shared living spaces. The façades are therefore characterized by two cohabiting architectural languages serving to translate the mixed-use vocation of the mandate. Each private room is marked by a distinctive copper-coated alcove, while shared spaces (such as reception, the childcare centre on the main floor, and vertical circulation) are expressed with a more sober materials palette and uniform surfaces.