Maggie’s Centres are places where people with cancer, and their friends and families, can go to find free practical and emotional support. Heatherwick Studio was commissioned to design a new center at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds. The site chosen was the last patch of greenery at the hospital. The six-meter difference in level across the site would typically dictate a building dug into the slope – instead, the studio chose to follow its natural contours, so that at the highest point, visitors would have views of the Yorkshire Dales.

The pillars of support at Maggie’s are the counselling rooms, so these were placed, like three pavilions, organized around a heart and at changing levels of the slope. The space between them accommodates the common areas of the center, resulting in an inviting open space, simple for visitors to navigate, connecting all the areas to the garden.

The studio looked at the qualities that make a building a home; the use of warm, natural materials, the way that objects are used to express individuality, the combination of private spaces and places where people can come together, and gentle lighting.