Maggie’s is a charitable organisation offering free psychological and emotional support for people affected by cancer including their family and friends.
Located at the heart of one of Europe’s largest Teaching Hospitals in Europe, Maggie’s Yorkshire is serving the visitors of the St James’s Institute of Oncology.
Drawing upon the philosophy of Maggie's that great design can help people feel better, we used several 'healthy' materials and energy-saving techniques. The building's structure is built from a prefabricated and sustainably sourced spruce timber system, while porous materials such as lime plaster help to maintain the internal humidity of the naturally ventilated building. The centre is expressed as a grouping of large-scale planters of varying sizes. The base of each planter encloses a distinct private place for visitors to meet or spend time by themselves while the spaces between offer relaced and approachable social spaces for group conversation and activities.
Maggie’s Yorkshire significantly enhances biodiversity on the site by 436%, creating and restoring habitats, great increasement of green coverage, and productive landscaping. The landscape design aspires to return a small corner of the highly urban St James’s site to a natural woodland habitat with predominantly native planting. It forms part of a green network and wildlife corridor, linking nearby habitats, particularly for insects and bird populations. It also provides shelter from the wind turbulence created by the surrounding buildings.
Inspired by Maggie Keswick Jencks' love of gardening, visitors are able to help care of the 23,000 bulbs and 17,000 plants on site.

Maggie’s centres are collective places where people with cancer, and their friends and families, can go to find free practical and emotional support. They follow the approach to care set out by Maggie Keswick Jencks – a belief that people should not “lose the joy of living in the fear of dying”.
St James’s is Europe’s largest teaching hospital and home to the Leeds Cancer Centre, which serves a diverse community across Yorkshire. The hospital staff had been working to improve the experience for patients and the studio wanted to support this by providing further respite from the clinical environment.
The relationship between the centre’s architecture and the experience for visitors extends beyond the uplifting effect of its garden. The front door 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. 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. There is a private space for staff to rest and gather strength, and a sheltered roof garden accessible to all.