77 Gage Ave N - Hub model: Friendship centre and housing

Mandated by the City of Hamilton, EVOQ Architecture is leading the feasibility study for the adaptive reuse of the former King George School into a vibrant Indigenous community hub. The project brings together the Hamilton Regional Indian Centre (HRIC), and the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services (OAHS).

The program combines cultural spaces, classrooms, lounges, teaching kitchens, cafeteria, counselling and support services, a library, a food bank, meeting spaces and administrative offices. A new four-storey residential addition provides 34 affordable housing units.  A gathering space with a firepit and a healing garden redefines the forecourt. The layering of screens and artwork on the exterior facades and in the landscape play central roles in helping to shed the building's institutional character and transform it into a place of belonging, cultural celebration, and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.