Turning over a new leaf: rehabilitating the former St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital into a community haven for care and repair

Abstract

Located in southern Ontario, Canada, the now abandoned St. Thomas Psychiatric Hospital was built in 1939 to address psychiatric patient overcrowding throughout the province. Following the official closure of the hospital in 2013 due to the widespread deinstitutionalization of psychiatric care that began in the 1960s, the hospital has been used occasionally as a set for sinister media productions. An analysis of the design of the buildings and grounds of this institution combined with archival and secondary source research into the institution’s operations, and of the “custodial care” treatment model commonly found within these facilities, reveals power dynamics and the stigmatization of mental illness, as well as a strong relationship between deinstitutionalization and houselessness. This thesis explores how buildings with a dark history may be sensitively repurposed by proposing the adaptive reuse of this site to provide “rehabilitative care” mental health supports, supportive housing, and public programming.