St-Charles Dental Clinic / Alain Carle Architecte

Responding to the needs of Dr. Anh Tuan Nguyen and his team – mainly to have a light and airy clinic – while also respecting the philosophy of ‘minimal means for maximum effects’, the Studio favored a simple intervention based on the ingenious use of materials and meticulously executed construction methods. Clinique dentaire St-Charles presents an architecture that highlights the green spaces and activities of adjacent Catherine-Primot Park, as well as the urban vitality of this coveted sector of the City of Longueuil.

With natural elements being recognized as factors that reduce psychophysiological stress, the architectural proposal maximizes sunshine, luminosity, and the presence of vegetation. Covered in curtain walls, featuring ultra-clear glass surfaces with high-performance low-emissivity film, the clinic is bathed in an enveloping light that provides a soothing atmosphere.

Transparency creates visual permeability in both the green and urban environment, with seasonal changes and weather moods, as well as pedestrian flows, providing benefits for both clients and the entire clinic team. In correlation, a permanent connection with the exterior also provides an openness to the professional activities and interactions taking place inside the clinic.

The perimeter distribution of the thirty-five treatment spaces, all equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and complete universal accessibility, provides each patient, as well as members of the clinic team, with a visual link to the surrounding nature. Structural, organizational, luminous, and acoustic frames generate a rhythmic composition that structures the volumetric identity while animating it with repetitions and superpositions of both functional and aesthetic character.

The articulation of the frames generates shadow games that combine with architectural elements to display a visual poetry evocative of the abundance of nature. Strategies are deployed to highlight oppositions between interior and exterior, and to optimize, through contrasts and backlighting, a sense of the dominance of whiteness. Beyond its architectural expressiveness, the clinic blends harmoniously into its sector by multiplying the images of green spaces and neighboring buildings in a conciliatory mirror effect.

Beyond its achievement as an integration of biophilic elements that contribute to the well-being of all, Clinique dentaire St-Charles generates activities and atmospheres that place it in a living context, thus contributing to the liveliness of the sector, as well as a sense of urban safety. And when illuminated, the complex serves as a landmark demarking the entrance to the bustling commercial area of Vieux-Longueuil.