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The motivation for the project was to create a calm space for sufferers and their families. It was meant to be homely, avoiding any hint of a clinic. Our approach was to design the lighting to be warm, comfortable, intuitive to use and provide a visual connection between the interior and exterior space. We placed warm lighting in niches which hold plants, pictures, books and other household things – making them rather than the lighting the priority. Elsewhere, simple uplights illuminate the soffits. Externally, lighting is very much garden-scale and appears unstructured like the planting, but is actually all carefully planned.

About Maggie’s cancer care centre

Maggie’s is a charitable initiative co-founded in 1995 by garden designer Maggie and her husband, architecture critic Charles Jencks. Their vision was to create a cancer care centre, a safe and warm space where people could access emotional and psychological support surrounded by good architecture and uplifting landscape. Maggie’s in Leeds is the charity’s twenty-sixth cancer care centre in the UK.

Client: Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre
Design Team: Heatherwick Studio
Landscape Architect: Balston Agius
Photographer: Hufton+Crow

Read more about the recognition at the Dezeen Awards webpage