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Maggie's Gartnavel

On 3rd October 2011 pioneering cancer caring charity Maggie’s opened their eighth centre in the UK, Maggie’s Gartnavel – the first of three new Maggie’s Centres set to open before the end of the year.

The building is funded by grant making charity Walk the Walk from some of the money raised at The MoonWalk Edinburgh, providing a much needed second Maggie’s Centre in Glasgow to serve the west of Scotland’s cancer population – an area with a high incidence of cancer.

Designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ellen van Loon of OMA, one of the most influential architectural practices working today - whose most celebrated buildings include the Seattle Central Library and the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin - Maggie’s Gartnavel will be OMA’s first permanent building to open in the UK. The architects' detailed design description can be viewed below.

Complementing the centre’s design is a landscape design consisting of internal courtyard plantings and a surrounding wooded glades area, designed by Lily Jencks, daughter of Maggie’s Founders, Maggie Keswick Jencks and Charles Jencks, in conjunction with the landscape architecture and urban design company HarrisonStevens.

Leading contemporary Scottish artist Callum Innes has also gifted three oil on oil paper 205 x 100cms paintings to the centre - works by the artist similar to those in the collections of the Pompidou Centre in Paris and National Galleries of Scotland.

Maggie's Gartnavel is located a stone’s throw from the Scotland’s leading oncology facility, the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, which serves a population of 2.8 million people (60 per cent of Scotland’s population).
Maggie’s Gartnavel will work in tandem with the original Maggie’s Glasgow at the Western Infirmary (opened in 2002), to provide a first class level of evidence based emotional support and practical advice to people with cancer, their friends and family.

2011 is a landmark year for Maggie’s as the charity celebrates its 15th birthday, and its growth to 15 centres which are either open or in development. Maggie’s Gartnavel, Maggie’s Nottingham, designed by Piers Gough CBE of CZWG with interiors by Sir Paul Smith, and Maggie’s South West Wales, designed by Kisho Kurokawa, ArBITAT Architects and Garbers & James Architects, will all open before the end of the year, as part of an expansion to improve the landscape of cancer care and support across the UK. In the space of 15 years, Maggie’s has helped nearly half a million people to build a life with, through and beyond cancer and has been recognised as providing outstanding cancer care by the Department of Health.

'The Architecture of Hope' Exhibition to mark Maggie’s 15th anniversary year is currently on display at The Lighthouse, Scotland’s Centre for Architecture and Design, until November.

Laura Lee, Maggie’s Chief Executive, said: “It is an honour to open our eighth Maggie’s Centre. Today is a celebration of a fantastic new resource for the west of Scotland’s cancer population, as well as a celebration of this pivotal year in Maggie’s history. It’s hard to believe that it was fifteen years ago when we opened our very first centre in Edinburgh – delivering Maggie Keswick Jencks vision of providing an antidote to the isolation and despair of cancer. It soon became apparent that other regions and communities greatly needed a Maggie’s Centre too, and through wonderful support, we have managed to grow our network of centres and today take great pride in our newest centre – Maggie’s Gartnavel. OMA have created a truly unique environment, which will help to facilitate our programme of support, by making people feel safe, inspired and valued, whilst Lily Jencks garden design complements the centre beautifully. Most importantly, Maggie’s Gartnavel has been made possible through a unique partnership with Walk the Walk, whose tenacious Edinburgh MoonWalkers, take to the streets of Edinburgh each year in wonderfully decorate bras to raise money to support cancer charities. Thank you to Walk the Walk and to everyone who has graciously support us over the years – you are helping to make a huge difference.”

Nina Barough, Chief Executive and Founder of Walk the Walk Worldwide, said: “What a proud day it is for Walk the Walk! Over the past six years, our Scottish MoonWalkers have trained hard, devised fantastic fundraising schemes, designed outlandish bras, and then actually had the courage to go into the streets of the capital at Midnight wearing their creations as they take on their marathon challenge at The MoonWalk Edinburgh, all with a united vision of helping to support people facing cancer. Today that vision has become a reality as Walk the Walk has become the principle funder for this wonderful new Maggie’s Centre, which will offer cancer patients the care and support so needed when facing a cancer diagnosis. We have a very special relationship with Maggie’s and are pleased that in 2011, as we partner to open this new centre, Maggie’ s celebrate their 15th year and Walk the Walk are about to start a celebration of 15 years of MoonWalking!”

Ellen Van Loon, OMA Partner, said: “I enjoyed designing such an exceptional environment with this very dedicated and inspired team of designers and contractors. The sequence of spaces is an interplay of openness, retreat and support to underpin the Maggie’s programme.”
Lily Jencks, Landscape Designer, said: “Designing the centre has provided a strong connection to my mother and my hope is to have created a unique and joyful design in her memory. The landscape is a buffer surrounding the centre, providing a place apart, so that as people enter they feel a different pace and emotional connection to their surroundings. The garden actively embeds the building into the ground, cushioning and embracing the centre in a hill, showing the necessity of a supportive environment that is so central to Maggie’s philosophy.”

Callum Innes, Contemporary Artist, said: “Often works leave the studio and take on a life of their own and you never know where they are or who is seeing them. It gives me great pleasure to gift these works to Maggie’s and know they will be seen by different people who come through their centre.”

OMA Design Statement

The aim of a Maggie's Centre is to provide an environment of practical and
emotional support for people with cancer, their families and friends. Since the opening of the first Maggie's Centre in Edinburgh in 1996, the Maggie's
Cancer Caring Centres foundation has grown substantially, commissioning
and developing a series of innovative buildings designed by world class
architects. While contemporary architecture has a reputation, deservedly or
not, for being at times cold or alienating, the goal of each Maggie's Centre –
whether in Glasgow, London, or Hong Kong – is to provide a space where
people feel at home and cared for, a space that is warm, receptive, and
welcoming.

Maggie's Centres rely on the fundamental precept, often overlooked, that
exceptional architecture and innovative spaces can make people feel better – thereby kindling the curiosity and imagination fundamental to feeling alive.
Grand in their ambitions, but designed on a small scale, Maggie's Centres
provide a welcome respite from typical institutional hospital architecture.
Their spaces are more than merely functional; they serve as a haven for
those receiving treatment. In creating a place to connect and learn from
others who are going through similar experiences, Maggie's Centres help
patients to develop their sense of confidence and resourcefulness.

In 2007, Maggie's Centre approached OMA to design a new centre on the
grounds of Gartnavel hospital in Glasgow, close to the Beatson West of
Scotland Cancer Centre. OMA designed a single-level building in the form of
a ring of interlocking rooms surrounding an internal landscaped courtyard.
Seemingly haphazardly arranged, the building is actually a careful
composition of spaces responding to the needs of a Maggie's Centre and
providing a refuge for those coping with cancer.

Instead of a series of isolated rooms, the building is designed as a sequence of interconnected L-shaped figures in the plan that create clearly distinguished areas – an arrangement that minimises the need for corridors and hallways and allows the rooms to flow. The plan has been organized for the spaces to feel casual, almost carefree, allowing one to feel at ease and at home, part of an empathetic community of people. At the same time the design also provides spaces for more personal moments – either in the intimate setting of the counselling rooms, or in smaller nooks and private spaces.

Located in a natural setting, like a pavilion in the woods, the building is both
introverted and extroverted: each space has a relationship either to the
internal courtyard or to the surrounding woodland and greenery, while certain moments provide views of Glasgow beyond. With a flat roof and floor levels that respond to the natural topography, the rooms vary in height, with the more intimate areas programmed for private uses such as counselling, and more open and spacious zones for communal use. More than any other
space, the internal courtyard provides a place of sanctuary and respite.

Images courtesy of OMA; photography by Philippe Ruault

Gatrtnavel Model images kindly provided by Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres