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Studio Libeskind completes new Maggie's Centre design in London

2024-02-05T18:57:00-05:00

Studio Libeskind has completed work on its design for a new Maggie’s Centre cancer treatment facility at the Royal Free Hospital in north London.

The 4,886-square-foot design follows well-known contributions from Foster + Partners, Steven Holl, and Heatherwick Studio as an example of its client’s mission to provide patients with world-class settings in which to receive their care. The project is now the 24th Maggie’s Centre completed in the UK since 1996.

Photo: Hufton + Crow

The studio says its design is arranged for the free-flowing movement of patients and their caretakers while giving equal consideration to the needs for both privacy and socialization.

Photo: Hufton + Crow

In terms of building form, the Centre is curvilinear in contrast with the surrounding brick-and-mortar buildings on the NHS campus. The design was realized on a small plot that was once a parking lot. As such, its volume expands upwards from the ground floor clad in weathered timber panels and sheathed in glaz...

A children's mental health facility in Melbourne designed for a new health care typology

2022-03-29T14:58:00-04:00

Kerstin Thompson Architects and Bloxas have “invented” a new health care typology in their design for a children’s mental health facility in Melbourne’s north. The $7.3 million Statewide Child and Family Centre in Macleod will provide mental health services for children aged up to 11 who have experienced negative or traumatic events.

According to Kerstin Thompson and Bloxas principal Anthony Clarke, their design is based on the innovative care model developed by clinicians at Melbourne’s Austin Health. The main challenge for the architects was creating both a residential atmosphere and environment where children felt they have instrumentality and choice. They also wanted to break down the dichotomous patient-clinical dynamic of the setting. The team, thus, explored a number of different types of children’s spaces, such as childcare centers, children's libraries, and Maggie's Centers, which provide support for cancer patients.

Specific features in this new type of facility include the separation of therapy-focused areas from other spaces reserved for other activities, such as play areas, for the purpose of ridding confusion between positive and negative spatial association. Transition zones were also added, allowing individual decision-making to occur. In addition, garden spaces are present in all of the key spa...

Heatherwick Studios completes its first healthcare project, a mass timber Maggie's Centre in Leeds

2020-06-18T17:38:00-04:00

Recognized for its serene garden landscapes and eye-catching architectural approaches, Maggie's Centre facilities have become known the world over for the medical care and calming spaces these facilities offer individuals and their families affected by cancer.

Following the institution's dedication to providing environments of healing and tranquility, British designer Thomas Heatherwick has recently completed a new Maggie's Centre located within St. James' University Hospital, in Leeds, England. The project is his firm's first healthcare facility.

Maggie's Centre Leeds. Image © Hufton + Crow.

Founded by designer Maggie Keswick Jencks and her husband Charles Jencks, the facilities are a testament to how these two individuals dedicated their lives to creating a health-focused designs. Maggie's Centers have been established throughout the UK; TheMaggie's Centre in Leeds will be the organization's 26th facility.

Maggie's Centre Leeds - Interior. Image © Hufton + Crow.

Maggie's Centre L...

End Stages: The Future of Hospice Design

2018-05-15T16:38:00-04:00

As hospice design becomes more formally ambitious — and standardized — we should remember there is no universal model for ‘dying well.’

What is the ideal setting for the end of life? The dominant templates of the mid-century mega-hospital and the domestic hospice set the rational spaces of medical institutions against the familiarity of home. Yet, we are increasingly seeing hybrid forms that deviate from these two distinct models. Nitin Ahuja looks ahead to the future of palliative architecture, and argues that in one's final needful hours, the most comforting hearths are those that feel serendipitously constructed.

Maggie's Centre founder Charles Jencks to open his house as a museum

2017-12-27T09:45:00-05:00

Architectural historian Charles Jencks has agreed to turn his house into a museum, according to BD. Located in London's Holland Park, the early Victorian stucco villa has interiors designed by Michael Graves and other alterations by Terry Farrell. An important example of post-modern design, the decision to open it up to the public has support from both Farrell and Norman Foster.

Jencks is best known for his Maggie's Centres. As the founder, Jencks recruits renowned architects to create spaces that offer free comprehensive support for those affected by cancer. Their most recent center, designed by Steven Holl, opened up earlier this month in Central London.

Interior by Farrell. Thematic House.

The Kensigton & Chelsea council have approved the proposal which would allow Jencks' Thematic House to be open to the public, by appointment, from April and December during the week for limited hours. It will remain his residence but visitors will be given access to archives of his own work, a...

Steven Holl Architects' Maggie's Centre at Barts is now open

2017-12-14T19:27:00-05:00

Over two years after the groundbreaking, the new Maggie's Centre Barts in Central London finally opened earlier this week. Located throughout the UK, Maggie's Centres offer free practical and emotional support for people who live with cancer and their loved ones.

Steven Holl Architects, along with UK firm jmarchitects, designed the 3-story building as a “vessel within a vessel within a vessel”. The new Maggie's Centre replaces a 1960s brick structure, adjacent to a 17th-century stone structure by James Gibbs.

Photo: Iwan Baan.

Built next to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital (London's oldest hospital), the Centre's exterior shows off a translucent glass facade that gives the structure a glowing appearance. The facade has colored glass fragments arranged in horizontal bands like a musical staff, in reference to the “neume notation” of 13-century Medieval music, SHA describes.

Photo: Iwan Baan.

The building's translucent facade allows the interior to be filled with natural lig...

Norman Foster's secret garden: a tour of Foster + Partners' Maggie's Center

2016-05-04T13:07:00-04:00

Cancer survivor Lord Norman Foster gave HRH Duchess of Cornwall a tour of his newly completed Maggie's Center in his hometown of Manchester at the cancer facility's official opening April 27th, showing her a design that emphasizes natural light and a connection to nature. This has lead to numerous sliding glass doors and walls throughout the rectilinear plan, as well as the intention to plant vines on the signature triangular timber frame. Additionally, each treatment and counselling room comes with its own private garden.

As Foster noted, "Our aim in Manchester, the city of my youth, was to create a building that is welcoming, friendly and without any of the institutional references of a hospital or health centre – a light-filled, homely space where people can gather, talk or simply reflect. That is why throughout the building there is a focus on natural light, greenery and views; with a greenhouse to provide fresh flowers, and an emphasis on the therapeutic qualities of nature and ...

Construction kicks off for Steven Holl-designed Maggie's Centre Barts in London

2015-06-11T20:25:00-04:00

A groundbreaking ceremony yesterday marked the beginning of construction for the new Maggie's Centre Barts that's coming to Northeast London next year. The 18 Maggie's Centres across the UK offer free practical, emotional and social support for people with cancer and their loved ones. During the ceremony, a large banner thanking everyone involved in the project was unveiled on site and a time capsule to be opened in 2065 was compiled -- in tradition with every Centre that is built. The capsule consisted of a signed watercolor print from Steven Holl, framed Hong Kong bank notes from British bank institution HSBC, and archive materials from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

The new Centre will be built on a 725 m2 site within the richly historic grounds of the 12th-century St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London's oldest hospital. With Steven Holl commissioned for architectural design in association with UK firm JM Architects, the Barts Centre will be a more vertical "vessel within a vessel withi...

Gehry-designed Maggie's Centre in Hong Kong opens doors

2013-03-08T13:34:00-05:00

The scheme is the charity’s first purpose-built international centre and is Gehry’s second building for the organisation, having also designed Maggie’s Dundee in Scotland. The surrounding gardens were drawn up by landscape architect Lily Jencks - the daughter of the organisation’s founders Maggie Keswick Jencks and Charles Jencks. Maggie’s Hong Kong has been ‘offering free support for anyone living with cancer including friends, family and carers’.