Forth Valley Maggie’s Centre

This brown rendered block building features a curved timber soffit that runs all the way around the three sides, fixed at the top with a 400mm-deep black pressed metal fascia panel with all-stud fixing showing.

The footprint of the scheme provides opening wings of welcome and a sheltering canopy to the north, while the sheltering wings to the east and south cradle views to a stand of mature trees and the loch respectively.

The internal haven evokes a warm, bone-dry boathouse, a sense increased by the 350mm-wide floorboards, which establish this visually, acoustically and in a tactile way.

At the heart of the scheme is the fire and the kitchen, as always in Maggie’s Centres, and users can wander around the whole of the internal perimeter to find their place and individual views. The construction is simple: a steel frame embedded within a highly insulated rendered and timber-clad rainscreen shell.

The bird wing-like striated cornice uses straight line geometries to place each individual Douglas Fir element, with the varying rise and fall angles providing the movement in the scheme. The cornice is also the element from which the geometrical direction of the ‘shoal of rooflights’ can be deduced, as the windows are extruded through the cornice, creating individual, monastic-like contemplative seating places inside.