Opening, after a seven-year odyssey, the Steven Holl-designed Maggie’s Barts in London.
Steven Holl Architects has partnered with jmarchitects to design the newly opened ‘Maggie’s Centre Barts', a three-storey healthcare facility sited in central london. The building serves as a public community center, providing free practical and emotional support for people living with cancer as well as their family and friends. With light-filled rooms and a community garden, the venue offers a series of meditative and tranquil spaces.
 

Description of project by Steven Holl

A three-story “urban townhouse,” the new Centre has been designed to be full of open space and light. The exterior works in harmony with the interior, allowing natural light to wash over the floors and walls, ever changing through the natural daylight pattern of the seasons. The building is envisioned as a “vessel within a vessel within a vessel.” The structure is a branching concrete frame, the inner layer is bamboo and the outer layer is matte white glass. The exterior glass with colored glass fragments is organized in horizontal bands like a musical staff, recalling “neume notation” of Medieval music of the 13th century. The word neume originates from the Greek pnevma, which means “vital force.” It suggests a “breath of life” that fills oneself with inspiration like a stream of air, the blowing of the wind. The new type of polychrome insulating glass was developed especially for the Centre by Steven Holl Architects in close collaboration with glass manufacturer Okalux.

The glass facade geometry follows the geometry of the main interior stair along the north facade, while lifting up with clear glass facing the main square. Inside, the open curved staircase is integral to the concrete frame with open spaces vertically lined in bamboo. There is a second entry on the west opening to the extended garden of the adjacent church. The building tops out in a public roof garden open to a large room for yoga, Tai Chi, meetings etc. The garden will be open to patients, staff and the public and will be maintained by Maggie’s. The interior character of this building is shaped by colored light washing the floors and walls, changing by the time of day and season. Interior lighting is organized to allow the colored lenses together with the translucent white glass of the facade to present a new, joyful, glowing presence on this corner of the great square of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

 “I believe drawing is a form of thought and music is a vital life force. At Maggie’s Barts, these two are united to yield the space and light of a tiny work of architecture with large joyful hopes.”

Layers of history characterize this unique site, connecting deeply to the Medieval culture of London. The site in the center of London is adjacent to the large courtyard of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Founded in Smithfield in the 12th century, the hospital is the oldest in London and was founded at the same time as the St. Bartholomew the Great Church in 1123. Rahere founded the church and hospital “for the restoration of poor men.” The new Maggie’s Barts replaces a pragmatic 1960s brick structure adjacent to a 17th century stone structure by James Gibbs, holding the “Great Hall” and the famous Hogarth staircase.

Laura Lee, Maggie’s Chief Executive said, “It is with great pride that we can announce the opening of Maggie’s Barts. The Centre helps us to extend Maggie’s vital practical and emotional support to more people across the capital.” She added, “Steven Holl’s design is a perfect blend of old and new and sits beautifully next to the historical hospital site. With its colored glass and peaceful roof garden, designed by Darren Hawkes, I am sure the Centre will provide a safe haven for people living with cancer and their family and friends across the East of London.”

With advances in medicine and earlier diagnosis the chances of surviving cancer long term is double that of 40 years ago. As the number of people living with cancer increases, so does the need for practical and emotional support to cope with the challenges that living with and beyond cancer brings. Working in partnership with Barts Health NHS Trust, the new Maggie’s Centre will offer a way of living well with cancer for the 5,500 new cancer diagnoses Barts sees each year.

Maggie’s relies on voluntary donations to support and grow its network of Centres across London and the UK and to develop its unique, high quality program of support. For further information and to ensure Maggie’s continues to provide its program of support please visit www.maggiescentres.org/barts and help make the biggest difference possible to people living with cancer and their family and friends across the capital.

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Architect
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Steven Holl Architects.- Steven Holl (design architect, principal). Chris McVoy (senior partner in charge). Dominik Sigg (project architect, associate).
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Project Team
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Bell Ying Yi Cai, Gemma Gene, Martin Kropac, Christina Yessios
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Client
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Maggie Keswick Jencks Cancer Caring Centres Trust (Maggie's)
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Area
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6,534 sq ft
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Dates
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2010-2017
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Collaborators
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Landscape architect.- Bradley Hole-Schoenaich. Associate architects.- JM Architects. Engineer.- Arup (civil, climate, and mechanical). Historic building advisor.- Donald Insall Associates. Lighting consultant.- L'Observatoire International. CDM Coordinator.- Floor Projects LLP. Code consultant. Butler & Young.- Planning advisor.- DP9. Cost estimator.- Gardiner & Theobald. Construction manager.- Sir Robert McAlpine. Archeology.- MOLA. Glass consultant.- Arup
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Steven Holl was born in 1947 in Bremerton, Washington. He graduated from the University of Washington and pursued architecture studies in Rome in 1970. In 1976 he attended the Architectural Association in London and established STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS in New York City. Considered one of America's most important architects.He has realized cultural, civic, academic and residential projects both in the United States and internationally. Most recently completed are the Cité de l'Océan et du Surf in Biarritz, France (2011).

Steven Holl is a tenured Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture and Planning. He has lectured and exhibited widely and has published numerous texts.

Recently the office has won a number of international design competitions including the new design for the Contemporary Art Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, USA) and he has been recognized with architecture's most prestigious awards and prizes. Recently, he received the RIBA 2010 Jencks Award, and the first ever Arts Award of the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards (2009). In 2006 Steven Holl received honorary degrees from Seattle University and Moholy-Nagy University in Budapest. In 2003 he was named Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Steven Holl is a member of the American National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), the American Institute of Architects, the American Association of Museums, the Honorary Whitney Circle, the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the International Honorary Committee, Vilpuri Library, of the Alvar Aalto Foundation.

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Published on: December 19, 2017
Cite: "New Maggie's Centre by Steven Holl opens in London with Translucent Glass Façade" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/new-maggies-centre-steven-holl-opens-london-translucent-glass-facade> ISSN 1139-6415
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