Heath­erwick Studio’s Leeds Maggie’s Centre is roofed by three overlapping gardens

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Hufton & Crow

Heath­erwick Studio has completed a Maggie’s centre at St James’s University Hospital – Europe’s largest teaching hospital and home to the Leeds Cancer Centre. Maggie’s Centres, operated by the Maggie’s charity, provide architectural distinguished places for cancer patients and their families to relax or seek informstion on hospital campuses. At Leeds the brief was to create ‘a home that people wouldn’t dare build for themselves’ for around 110 visitors per day. Located on a steeply sloping site, the building follows the contours of the land, providing visitors with views of the Yorkshire Dales and a connection to the world beyond the hospital.

The pillars of support at Maggie’s are the counselling rooms, so these were placed, like three pavilions, organised around a heart and at changing levels of the slope, says Heath­erwick Studio. The space between them accommodates the common areas of the centre, resulting in an inviting open space, simple for visitors to navigate, connecting all the areas to the garden. Externally, this gives the building a different character from every angle. Two entrances were also created: a front door and a rear entrance for staff and regular visitors.

The challenge was to span and enclose the level changes and reinstate the site’s greenery. Instead of a single monolithic canopy, the roof comprises three overlapping gardens, which step down and overhang to shelter communal areas. In this way, the hospital does not lose its last green space – it is lifted up, filled with woodland plants and made more accessible and inviting.

The relationship between the centre’s architecture and the experience for visitors extends beyond the uplifting effect of its garden. The front door, for example, is a psychological threshold – the point at which someone might start to accept a cancer diagnosis. Not everyone will be ready to open the door straight away, so there is a bench to sit outside, or a private path to wander quietly through the gar­dens. The entrance wall is transparent and the door is moved to the side under a lower roof, where it is less intimidating.

Inside, visitors are not confronted by a conventional reception space. Instead, they find a welcoming window seat, a noticeboard, and a view through to the heart of the centre, with its communal table in the arc of a staircase leading to the kitchen. The kitchen table, a feature of all Maggie’s centres, represents another threshold – the point where visitors feel ready to share their experiences. Everything is on display, so there is no awkward rummaging through cupboards to find a mug, and a clerestory fills the space with natural light. Above this, there is a private space for staff to rest and gather strength, and a sheltered roof garden accessible to all.

Ground-floor plan; mezzanine; section; timber structure

The road running along the site presented a challenge for the building’s construction. As the main ambulance route, it could not be disrupted by months of heavy vehicles. The team designed a structure that could be built off-site and assembled quickly on a concrete slab and retaining wall with minimal disruption. The entire building superstructure was manufactured in Switzerland and installed on site in just eight weeks. This is supported by glulam fins, whose modulations give the feeling of trunks rising up from the ground to support the gardens overhead. The structure is mostly made of sustainably forested spruce, a material that will expand and contract with the seasons, as if alive.

The studio explored the qualities that make a building a home: the use of warm, natural materials, the way that objects are used to express individuality, the combination of private spaces and places where people can come together, as well as gentle lighting. Between the timber fins are shelves, lined, as you might at home, with nick-knacks, pot plants and the interesting things that people bring to the centre.

When it came to lighting, the studio had the idea that the wooden cores could glow, as if they were emitting light. This is achieved by integrating the lighting with the shelves and interior edges of the roofs. The designers had to work backwards, specifying how the lights, and services would be inte­grated at an early stage in the process, as the building was still taking shape.

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