RIBA Stirling shortlist 2012 – Maggie’s Centre, Glasgow
The entrance space reveals that the single-storey building is a doughnut with fully-glazed internal walls overlooking a grassy mound. Simultaneously one is aware of a series of interlocking rectangular spaces that lead away in a jagged circle, giving a sense of permeability and promenade and most-tellingly avoiding that bane of hospital architecture – the corridor.
At the same time, there are a number of spaces for personal privacy and interaction, discrete counselling rooms or private nooks and corners, some of which have involved local artist/artisan design and fabrication. Generally there is a surprisingly rich variety of materials and skills on display here, with a particularly pleasing flush inlaid timber/concrete ceiling.
The plan looks haphazard, even chaotic, and there is a medley of different spaces and materials, but this is a masterful composition of highly-efficient spaces.
Architect: OMA
Client: Maggie Keswick Jencks Cancer Caring Centres Trust
Maggie’s Centre video
OMA’s Ellen van Loon describes the project in the context of Rem Koolhaas’s personal connection to Maggie Keswick Jencks and her family. The enclosed courtyard garden is described as a reminder of the continuity and cyclical nature of life and is designed to draw the eye away from the main hospital.
Location details
The Maggie’s Centre Gartnavel can be found to the east of Gartnavel General Hospital on Great Western Road, approximately 3 miles from the centre of Glasgow.
