Plans in for HB Architects-designed Maggie’s Liverpool
The independent charity provides cancer care centres, with prestigious architects often picked to give the facilities architectural flair.
Alongside Royal Liverpool Hospital, the 18,800 sq ft Prescot Street-facing facility has been designed by Rugby-based HB Architects, the practice’s third such centre.
Other architects, such as Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster – at Manchester’s Christie – and Stirk Harbour + Partners, are some of the biggest firms to be handed a Maggie’s design job. In 2017, a Maggie’s designed by drMM was opened at the Royal Oldham Hospital
HB Architects, however, is the first practice to design three centres for Maggie’s, following projects in North Wales and at the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre on the Wirral.
Collington Winter would undertake the project’s landscaping, with the plans indicating the introduction of small wildflower meadows and a ‘reflection space’ with a linear water reflection pool, enclosed by a birch grove.
The Steve Morgan Foundation selected the architect in what the foundation calls “disruptive philanthropy” on its website – its parent company, Bridgemere, applied to Liverpool City Council.
This represents the first time Maggie’s has taken a less-direct client role in the development of its centres.
All prospective architects of Maggie’s centres are given the same design brief, which is “deliberately domestic”, and “the antithesis of hospitals”.
The main hospital and the Liverpool Clatterbridge cancer centre are located to the south of the Prescot Street site.
To view the application, use the planning reference number 25F/0550 on Liverpool City Council’s planning portal.
This is a very poor design… Why is this city so averse to innovative, sustainable design and so keen to use practices outside of the North. Why are we not eligible for something as amazing as the Glasgow or the Leeds Maggies Centres? Pioneering natural materials, creating an inspiring space that people in need require in this city.
By Jordan Hau
Good to see Maggie’s in Liverpool, but the design is a tad underwhelming compared to other Maggie’s around the world.
It resembles a post war council rent office.
Nether the less the important work takes place inside.
By Liverpool4Progress
`prestigious architects often picked to give the facilities architectural flair’
Often but not always clearly…
By Jack Mary Ann
“give the facilities architectural flair”…clearly they missed the memo on this one. Just looks like one of the horrendous 90s-00s office and apartment blocks that plague the streets of Manchester.
By shh
With its stunning Neo Gothic facade and an interior that would make Pugin weep for joy this beautiful example of Liverpool architecture is a …oh hang on I’ve just realised …oh no..has somebody signed off on this? Come on , some glass would be nice.,Liverpool is turning into Slough from the 1980’s if this is what’s being passed these days and no, we shouldn’t be grateful for anything.
By Pugins Ghost
That looks like a Data Centre.
By Tom
Is it not worth asking Maggie’s themselves whether, given the quality of their buildings has always been a major part of their USP, switching to dull, everyday business park-type stuff is a new general policy, or whether it *is* the case that specifically Liverpool only qualifies for this sort of thing?
I suppose it’s always possible that buildings by famous architects turn out to be expensive to build and for a charity to run, maintain and adapt after a while…
By Rotringer
Should this one have been published yesterday? Would explain the design…
By Abots
very very ordinary
what a missed opportunity to something special
By Anonymous
So, so disappointing. Steve Morgan wants “disruptive philanthropy” – little did we know that what he wanted to disrupt was Maggie’s reputation for delivering top class architecture.
What a legacy to leave in your hometown – a drab, architecture-free Maggies when other cities get world class architecture.
Get this sorted now, it’s not too late.
By Anonymous