Nearly 200 metres long, a tunnel network under Toronto’s University Avenue connects several major hospitals. Staff and patients’ family members use it to get from one hospital to another, often while transporting a patient on a gurney or in a wheelchair. Recognizing that this functionally important circulation route was dispiritingly utilitarian and hard to navigate, UHN (University Health Network) staged a competition for a design that would promote feelings of positivity and assist in wayfinding.
PLANT’s shortlisted entry combines natural imagery with shifting vantage points to animate this subterranean environment. The tunnel presents a journey through the four seasons, with fall at its west end and spring at the east. Seasonal forest images – fixed and animated – open up at key points through angled slats in the panelled south wall. The wall panels also incorporate backlit directional signage. As people move through the tunnel, their shifting positions in relation to the angled slats and the forest views glimpsed through them evoke the sensory experience of a walk in the woods.