Maggie's Centers are opening up at major oncology hospitals in the UK: in this case, Christy Hospital, which treats more than 44,000 people a year, is one of the largest of its kind in Europe. In Maggie's centers, entirely funded by donations from philanthropists, they provide free psychological and legal assistance to patients and their families, where you can get advice on any practical issue, do special gymnastics, talk with fellow misfortune, and all this - in a comfortable, very distant from the cold hospital atmosphere to the interior.
The idea for such centers belongs to the landscape architect Maggie Kezwick-Jenks, who died of cancer in 1995. During her treatment, she was amazed at how traumatizing a patient with a severe diagnosis was by the mechanistic arrangement of hospitals. Her husband, the theorist of architecture Charles Jencks, was engaged in the embodiment of her plan. Thanks to the friendship of this couple with many architects, including the greatest masters, Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Kisho Kurokawa, Stephen Hall, Richard Rogers and others took on the projects of the centers, and all of them worked for free. Now there are more than a dozen operating centers, and the design and construction of new facilities is constantly underway.
Another Maggie Center will appear in Manchester: with 50,000 people diagnosed with cancer annually in this metropolitan area and Cheshire, it will be the largest in existence, with 60,000 visits per year. The choice of the architect was not accidental: Norman Foster was born in Manchester and spent his youth there. In addition, as the architect himself emphasizes, the topic of fighting cancer is close to him, because he himself suffered from cancer.
The new center will be a one-story building on a light timber frame, with a raised roof ridge, under which there will be a mezzanine floor. The frame will be brought out into the interior filled with sunlight. To the south, a greenhouse will be attached to the building, which will allow visitors to spend time outdoors in any weather. Deep roof extensions serve the same purpose: thanks to them, you can stay in the garden surrounding the building, even in the rain. In the building itself, there will be internal gardens, a vegetable garden will be arranged nearby, and over time it will be entwined with climbing plants, and Maggie's Manchester center will be completely immersed in the natural environment.
