15 June 2015

Two new Maggie's Centres, designed by Steven Holl and Thomas Heatherwick, move forward with a groundbreaking and design unveiling, respectively.

The Maggie's Centres, which provide free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their family and friends in the UK, were founded in 1995 by Maggie Keswick Jencks, the late wife of architect and architectural writer Charles Jencks. To date eighteen of the facilities designed by well known architects have been built on the grounds of National Health Service cancer hospitals.

On 10 June the Maggie's designed by Steven Holl Architects broke ground on a site adjacent to the large courtyard of St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London. Holl's design is envisioned as "a vessel within a vessel within a vessel." Vertical where other Maggie's are horizontal, the three-story design is made of a branching concrete frame with an inner layer of perforated bamboo and an outer layer of matte white glass with colored glass fragments.