3 minute read
Maggie’s Centres
Approaching Maggie’s Leeds. © Hufton + Crow
Typology: Cancer care | Location: Leeds
Maggie’s Centres are places where people with cancer, and their friends and families, can find free practical and emotional support. Here, Maggie’s Leeds shows the essential role of landscape.
Heatherwick Studio was commissioned to design a new centre at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds and enlisted landscape design practice Balston Agius to work with them to deliver the project.
The site chosen was the last patch of greenery at the hospital – a grassy hill, bounded by roads and surrounded by large buildings. The six-metre difference in level across the site offered the opportunity to follow its natural contours, so that visitors could enjoy views of the Yorkshire Dales and a connection to the world beyond the hospital. It was this connection to the natural landscape beyond, as well as the tenacity of a Viburnum opulus (guelder rose) that informed the decision for the landscape to be predominantly British native woodland.
The centre is built from warm, natural materials and at all times those using the centre, whether patients or staff, are surrounded by the landscape, which acts as buffer to the harsher built environment of the hospital. The relationship between the centre’s architecture and the visitor’s experience extends beyond the uplifting effect of its surrounding landscape. 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 planting.
The planting scheme works on several levels: in terms of biodiversity and green corridors, but also the progression that a woodland landscape offers a visitor. Those receiving treatment experience a dynamic and changing landscape through the seasons, over the course of their treatment. The seasons can give hope to those who set themselves milestones – determined to see the bluebells or spring blossom the following year. It was important too that the landscape could partly look after itself; the focus for the Maggie’s team should be on the patients, not on the horticulture.
The relationship between the centre’s architecture and the visitor’s experience extends beyond the uplifting effect of its surrounding landscape.
Michael Balston is a Consultant and Marie-Louise Agius is a Senior Director at Balston Agius.
