From the street, it?s a quietly assertive presence. A glass box rests demurely above a stately Victorian home, while the rest of the building unfolds horizontally in a quilted interplay of brick, stone and glass. You enter from a small door nestled behind the Jarvis Street mansion and behold the reception desk tucked to the side and, before you, a lobby overlooking the verdant courtyard at the building?s heart. Here, a stone fireplace sits at the foot of a limestone wall that anchors the space, which reaches up to the second floor to take in light from the windows above. It feels more like a living room than a lobby, which is fitting for a place meant to feel more like a home than a hospital. This is Casey House.
Founded in 1988, the Toronto institution is the only hospital of its kind in the world. Dedicated solely to people with HIV/AIDS, the facility is devoted to what remains a stigmatized illness, one which disproportionately afflicts some of the most marginalized and vulnerable members of the population. Thirty years ago, it was a place to die. The first patient was brought in by a medical team whose members wore gowns, gloves and masks; he hadn?t felt the direct physical touch of another person in months. At Casey House, he was met with an embrace. In the ensuing decades, the treatment and prognosis of HIV/AIDS has improved drastically, becoming a condition to live with rather than a disease to die from. All the while, the notion of ?embrace? has remained the Casey H...