Carmody Groarke has designed a new interim Maggie’s Centre with the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in the outstanding natural landscape of the Wirral, Merseyside. The Centre serves residents of Merseyside, Cheshire and the surrounding area offering free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their family and friends. The new Maggie's Centre is adjacent to the Clatterbridge hospital facilities and is sited to regard a single, magnificent panoramic view over the farming fields of the Wirral landscape.
Each and every room is able to take advantage of this view, as well as looking onto several secluded gardens enclosed by the building’s perimeter. In this way, a series of treatment rooms for communal meetings and singular retreat are created, all with a direct and therapeutic connection to nature. The construction of the Centre takes advantage of radically improvised and transformed site cabins, including the 11m long ‘London Dresser’ commissioned by the Mayor of London for the London 2012 Olympics celebrations.
The structures are arranged efficiently together around the position of mature trees on the site. The Centre is enveloped in a bespoke fibreglass wall that creates a mixture of inside and outside spaces and contributes to its unusual identity. The new building will be one of the first “interim” Maggie’s Centres, with the primary oncology care being eventually moved permanently to Liverpool City Centre. The building’s intended lifespan is only seven years. As such, the temporary architectural intervention will be able to test patterns of patient care in advance of the permanent facility.