Our projects

Realising the extraordinary for Maggie's

Through our long-term relationship with Maggie’s, we’ve built some of their most ground-breaking cancer care centres across the country.

Conceived by world-famous architects, each centre is designed to create a calm and uplifting environment.

A home from home where patients and their families can get the support they need.

Our early involvement means we can identify potential issues in advance, providing Maggie’s with the insight and advice they need to make informed decisions.

Each centre has its challenges: working on a restricted hospital site in St Bart’s; perfecting the geometry and curves in Swansea; and creating the elaborate timber frame at Manchester.

But through innovation, close collaboration, precise planning and continuous communication we have brought these visions to life.

And putting hearts as well as heads behind each project, the relationship has grown. Now, through our corporate partnership we are generating vital funds, donations and support.

Summary

    • Client: Maggie Keswick Jencks Cancer Caring Centres Trust
    • Sector: Healthcare
    • Location: Nationwide
    • Services: Pre-Construction, Construction Support, Special Projects

To achieve these extraordinary designs at a high quality within budget, we provide buildability and financial advice well in advance. Our teams start by scrutinising the plans in minute detail. Transforming vision into reality, we stay true to the architect’s vision while keeping construction lean, efficient and collaborative.

  • Temporary solution: Mindful of the charity’s limited budget but immediate need, we designed and donated a meditative interim centre for Clatterbridge. Consisting of six site cabins and the London Dresser from the 2012 Olympics with a scalloped fibreglass wraparound, the centre has gone on to win awards for design and ingenuity.

  • Challenging curves: After struggling to work out how to realise Kisho Kurokawa’s concrete and curves for its Swansea centre, Maggie’s asked us to get involved.

  • Careful planning: When working on hospital premises, we make sure deliveries are carefully controlled and access routes maintained, ensuring minimal disruption.

  • Architecturally driven: Extensive prototyping and modelling and intense collaboration with all disciplines underpins delivery of Maggie’s distinctive centres.

  • Individually crafted: Each of the Swansea centre's individual titanium inserts was cut and rolled to the right shape before being inserted into the concrete panels.

Our projects with Maggie's

We were struggling to work out how to build the Swansea centre because of the nature of the design. It wasn’t something we could get an ordinary contractor to do because of the complexity of the architecture. What was wonderful at Swansea was that we got the design realised, and the quality of the building and finish was outstanding.

Laura Lee, Chief Executive, Maggie’s

We are proud to have a corporate partnership with Maggie’s which is based on the values we share. Alongside the projects we have worked on to deliver new centres, we are committed to fundraising for the charity. It costs £2,400 a day to keep one Maggie's Centre open - that's more than £500,000 a year. Over the coming years, we'll be fundraising as a company to contribute to those running costs, and offering our colleagues the opportunity to take part in events like the London Marathon, Swim Serpentine and the Maggie's Culture Crawl.

Awards

  1. awards

    LABC South Wales Building Excellence Awards (2012)

    • Best Community/Healthcare Building

    • Highly Commended as Best Technical Innovation Project

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    Architects’ Journal (2015)

    Small Projects Award

  3. awards

    RIBA

    • North West Award

    • North West Small Project of the Year

  4. awards

    Wood Awards (2017)

    Structural Award and Arnold Laver Gold Award

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    ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards (2017)

    Healthcare Award

  6. awards

    Building Better Healthcare Awards (2017)

    Highly commended 

  7. awards

    Society of Facade Engineering Awards 2018

    International Award for Facade Engineering Excellence "Outstanding Facade Innovation" for Maggie's St Barts