Forth Valley Maggie’s Centre
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The site is circled by mature lime and Scots pine trees
Keith Hunter Download Original
The Maggie’s Centre in Larbert, by Garbers & James, sits within a 28ha landscaped, ornamental waterfront and parkland.
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.
Data
- Begun: May 2015
- Completed: Mar 2017
- Floor area: 269m2
- Sector: Healthcare
- Procurement: SBBC Standard Building Contract with Quantities for use in Scotland. Two-stage tender, with competitive first stage and a negotiated second stage
- CO2 Emissions: 27.46kg/m2/year
- Address: Maggie’s Centre, Nina Barough Building, off Quintinshill Drive, Larbert, FK5 4SG, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Garbers & James
- Project architects: Thore Garbers, Wendy James
- Client: Maggie’s Centres
- Structural engineer: Jacobs
- MEP consultant: KJ Tait
- Project manager and quantity surveyor: CBA
- CDM Co-ordinator: CDM Scotland
- Main contractor: Sir Robert McAlpine; Dunne Group until July 2016
- CAD software used: formZ and Vectorworks
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