Taylor Maxwell specified for Maggie's Cancer Care Centre

Maggie's Centre in Lanarkshire, designed by Edinburgh based Reiach and Hall Architects, seeks to ‘reinstate a sense of boundary and tranquillity’ to the edge of a tree-lined estate occupied by Monklands General Hospital.

Maggie’s offers free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer, and their families and friends through drop in centres throughout the UK.

This project marks the 18th of its kind across the UK, where the original brief has evolved to place greater emphasis on the incorporation of external space to offer a tranquil and calm space for patients of the facility, and their families.

The external walls surrounding the drop-in centre were built using handmade Danish facing bricks, that give the building a tactile and crafted quality, reminiscent of primitive woven fences.

Using a long format brick within the design intermittently, irregular perforations in the walls provide a degree of separation from the hospital grounds, while offering a connection with the natural external environment, offering moments of visibility and outlook with places of privacy and inlook.

The project has won a host of accolades for the Edinburgh architects including the RIBA National Award 2015.