Maggie’s asks a lot of its buildings and hence of its architects. We expect the physical space to do a significant amount of our work for us. A Maggie’s Centre sets the scene for people going through a traumatic experience. They are places where people draw on strengths they may not have realised they had in order to maximise their own capacity to cope. We need buildings where people can read themselves differently, as individuals in unusually difficult circumstances, not as patients, let alone cancer victims. We identify ourselves in different ways and one of them is by our environment. This is why we choose architects who we think will rise to the challenge of making spaces for us which help this transition and also do apparently contradictory things. We need our buildings to feel safe and welcoming. They need to be small, and domestic in scale. On the other hand these little buildings should not pat you on the head, patronise you by being too cosy. They should rise to the occasion, just as you, the person needing help, is having to rise to the occasion of one of the most difficult challenges any of us is likely to have to face. At the very least they should raise your spirits. We need our buildings to recognise that the world of the hospital and a cancer diagnosis turn your personal world upside down, and that in deciding to walk through the door of a Maggie’s Centre people are saying to themselves and to us: “I am adjusting to a difficult and unknown situation that I am finding hard to cope with on my own.” To a greater or lesser degree, by walking in to a Maggie’s Centre people are asking how they can put their lives back together again. They are hoping for transformation. Giving them a place to turn to which is surprising and thought-provoking – and even inspiring – will give them the setting and the benchmark of qualities they will need in themselves. Knowing there is a place to turn to which is special in itself makes you feel valued. So we want the architects to think about the person who walks in the door. We also want the buildings to be interesting enough that they are a good reason to come in rather than just ‘I’m not coping’. The first clinical psychologist who worked for Maggie’s, Glyn Jarvis, says that working from a Maggie’s Centre means that he can start a quantum leap ahead of talking to the same people in a hospital context because people have actively chosen to come in. Maggie’s Centres and the way they are designed increase the sense of connectedness between people: they are not alone in this situation and people can find ways of moving forward from the crisis of a diagnosis. The architects should be thinking about the human relationships and connections, and doing the job of helping that happen. What we’re also looking for in our architects is an attitude. We want people to deliver the brief but without preconceived ideas. We don’t want to say to them: ‘This is the way it is done’. We want them to open our eyes as well. Maggie’s was lucky in our architect for the first Maggie’s, Richard Murphy in Edinburgh, who showed us how much a building can achieve by creating the right atmosphere. We were also lucky to be able to draw on the close friendships of Maggie and Charles Jencks with some of the most imaginative architects working in the world today, and who have reinforced for us how much a good building can do. We hadn’t realised, until it happened, how powerful a tool it would be that each community feels so proud of its Maggie’s. This works on multiple levels. Critical to the success of Maggie’s is a strong feeling of ownership by the local community. It makes people feel: ‘This place is wonderful and it belongs to me, and to other people in the same boat as me’. They want to come in. It provides one positive thing to look forward to in their trek to the hospital. It is critical, also, because people talk about their Maggie’s. The Centres do our ‘marketing’ for us. Crucially, these special, unique buildings help us to raise the money we need to build them in the first place, and then to keep them running. Our buildings are special and we chose special architects, not for some luxury add-on value, but because they are a critical component of what we do. LANDSCAPE BRIEF The brief for every Maggie’s Centre is the same (see above) and interestingly it does not mention landscape, although the importance of the landscape to the whole ethos of Maggie’s Centres is being increasingly recognised as extremely important. The brief for the garden at Maggie’s Lanarkshire emerged through detailed discussion between rankinfraser, the client team including Maggie’s Chief Executive Laura Lee and Reiach and Hall Architects. Essentially the brief for the garden was to extend all the positive aspects of the building brief outside into the landscape. Key phrases of the brief that we felt to be particularly important to the garden design were: -to feel safe and welcoming; -to be small, and domestic in scale but not patronising by being too cosy; -it should raise ones spirits; -it should be surprising and thought-provoking – and even inspiring; -it should promote a strong feeling of ownership by the local community.