‘Deeply saddened by the loss of Richard Rogers. In 2009 Richard gave me and fellow RIBA juror and artist Madelon Vriesendorp an unforgettable tour of Maggie’s Charing Cross; I took this photo on the day. For me it captures the brilliance and warmth of Richard and Madelon, two of the world’s greatest architectural imaginations.’  – Alison Brooks

Alison Brooks’ 2009 RIBA Awards Jury Citation for Maggie’s Charing Cross:

‘It is not normally in the power of architecture to move onlookers to tears, but this extraordinary building has inadvertently proven its ability to do just that. How is it possible that a building can generate an immediate and pervasive sense of welcome, warmth, serenity –  and even love – in the context of a frantic Hammersmith thoroughfare – and in the shadow of a dauntingly huge NHS hospital? This is the poetry that Rogers Stirk Harbor have worked at the Maggies Centre in Fulham Palace Road. Their quietly confident building is truly, unquestionably a haven for those who have been diagnosed with cancer. Their achievement is in having created a completely informal, home-like sanctuary to help patients learn to live – or die – with cancer, beautifully.

Conceived as a two-storey pavilion, the architects have sheltered the centre from its harsh surroundings with a thick and cheerfully orange masonry wall that also serves as a backdrop for carefully planted tree groves and gardens. Its positive spirit is signalled with a roof canopy that hovers high above the centre’s walls to protectively oversail its many intimate internal gardens, courtyards and roof terraces.

This is the impression one has from a distance, while approaching the centre along the exquisite garden walk that has been design by Dan Pearson. With one large opening in the centre’s façade providing a glimpse of a courtyard garden and dining table, it immediately speaks of simple human pleasures. It invites us in.

Passing along the garden wall to the Centre’s entrance one first encounters a window seat, from where one can sit and contemplate the garden at the end of the passage, or the entrance door to the centre itself. This is a place allowing visitors to stop, rest, take a deep breath, and make a decision to either enter or to turn back. How many buildings provide their visitors such a simple luxury, to spend some time sitting in a beautiful spot before actually going in?

Once inside, a fireplace, a walled garden, and then the kitchen table beckons as the centrepiece of a double height space. This is the centre’s domestic heart, washed in light and framed by beautifully cast in-situ concrete columns. Also supporting the 1^st floor and roof, the column arrangement is based on a 4m grid that provides an ideal proportion for the consultation, treatment rooms, living spaces and garden courtyards that all open off the kitchen. There are no doors in the centre – privacy can be created by sliding screens, translucent glass panels, or bookshelves. These are all built in a light timber that contributes a slightly Scandinavian air of well-being to the centre. Books, art, built-in furniture and inglenooks all contribute to an over-riding sense of comforting domesticity.

The first floor administration space is completely open to the floor below –  in complete contrast to most health care institutions. This green-floored series of mezzanines feels like a tree house with views out on all four sides with a suntrap roof terrace protected by the oversailing roof.  Balustrades at this level have been detailed as bookshelves and display surfaces, another example of the architect making every element of the building work in a multiplicity of modes, both beautiful and functional, with intense thoughtfulness and care.

The jury felt that RSH’s Maggie’s Centre exceeds at every level this most demanding of briefs; to create a sanctuary for terminally ill cancer sufferers for a client and personal friend of the architect (Charles Jencks); whose deep conviction in architecture’s power to shape our experience has dedicated the building to the memory of his wife. Richard Rogers and his team have produced a timeless work of architecture that not only distills the intentions of this brief but expresses in built form compassion, sensitivity and a deep sense of our common humanity.’ 

A Brooks

Chair of Jury: Alison Brooks

Regional Representative: Chris Hampson

Lay assessor: Madelon Vriesdendorp

Date of visit: Thursday 2 April

Name of Scheme: Maggie’s Centre, London

Address of Scheme: Charing Cross Hospital, Fulham Palace Road, London W6 8RF

Architect: Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

Client: Laura Lee, Maggie’s

Windward House has won this year’s RIBA House of the Year award.

“This geometric design skilfully fuses together the old with the new – connecting two architectures separated by over 300 years,” said Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) president Simon Allford.

A ‘campus within a building’, our Cohen Quad, Exeter College, Oxford has won an Architecture MasterPrize award.

Conceived as a place for social gathering and academic exchange, the project is Oxford’s first fully inclusive and barrier-free quad.

Our Windward House has won the Manser Medal – House of the Year 2021, part of the Architects’ Journal Architecture Awards. A celebration of domestic life shared with an extraordinary collection of art, our house impressed the judges as a “complete piece of architecture – beautifully executed and considered.”

The project exemplifies a “real success story of a client and architect working together. The ambition and quality of the end result is wonderful” , said one judge.  

Alison Brooks Architects is honoured to have received such a prestigious award for the second time, marking another significant milestone for the practice.

Our Cohen Quad, Exeter College, Oxford has won 2 Education Estates Awards 2021: Project of the Year – Universities and Inspiring Learning Spaces. Our project has also received a High Commendation for Client of the Year.

Excited to share ‘Home Ground’, our contribution to the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Hashim Sarkis.

Situated in the Arsenale, our installation responds to the question ‘How will we live together?’ with a monumental table into which sixteen architectural models are cast as a participatory ‘conversation piece’. ‘Home Ground’ explores how housing defines the way we live together in cities; as households, and by shaping collective ground. It combines models of Alison Brooks Architects’ current housing projects from locations across the world. The installation reflects upon the nature of ground floor communal spaces in housing architecture as both thresholds to the private realm of the home and gathering spaces, where new communities can form. →

Photography: Gerdastudio
Fabrication: Base Models