Life is at the heart of £1bn plans for a new, world-leading cancer hub
...this is why that matters
There is a building in west London that has shaped everything I believe about the power of architecture.
It’s not a big building. At just under 4,000 sq ft it fits, albeit snugly, into the corner of a hospital car park.
But despite its limited sprawl and understated location, this bright orange-clad structure changes lives. Day in, day out. And it has been at the forefront of my mind since plans for a 1 million sq ft research and treatment centre at the London Cancer Hub in Sutton (which we will get to in just a minute) were submitted last month.
It is the light-filled, life-affirming haven that is the RSHP-designed Maggie’s Centre for cancer support on the site of Charing Cross Hospital. Grounded by an innate sense of purpose, it is one of the finest examples of human-centred design I have ever seen.
That said, I wish I didn’t know so much about it first-hand.
It is a place where I spent a great deal of time with my best friend, now over a decade ago, during her cancer treatment. Then in our twenties, Maggie’s was so much more than a place to grab a coffee, sit in a beautiful space and have a much needed catch-up. It was an escape to normality in the face of great uncertainty.
In contrast to the whirring, beeping, clattering cacophony of the hospital, it was - and indeed still is - a sanctuary in the darkest of times. A place where harsh strip lights have been replaced by the gentle glow of table lamps and pendants. Where rigid, plastic furniture gives over to cosy, sinking armchairs and a rustic, farmhouse-style kitchen table. Where the comforting aroma of coffee and home baking, rather than disinfectant, prevails.
Every inch of this Tardis-like haven was designed with the end-user in mind from the covered bench outside to support and acknowledge the fact it takes three of four attempts for some people to actually walk through the doors, to the purposefully oversized bathroom cubicles allowing enough room for a chair to create private spaces that feel calming and soothing rather than claustrophobic.
When Maggie’s West London opened in 2008, it was one of the first of its kind. Now, nearly twenty years on, there are 17 Maggie’s Centres across the UK, Europe and beyond designed by world-renowned architects including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Daniel Libeskind and Rem Koolhaas.
What these spaces all have in common, and what makes them work so well, is their innate connection to what it means to be human. They have all been designed to support the end-users during times of great fear, uncertainty and loss but also to promote love, connection and the pursuit of joy in the face of adversity. In the words of the centres’ namesake and the driving force behind their creation Maggie Keswick Jencks, the gardener and designer who died of breast cancer just months before the first centre opened, “above all else, what matters is not to lose the joy of living in the fear of dying.”
Now, we are seeing this crucial focus on human-centred design being deployed on a much larger scale across the healthcare and life sciences sectors, not just to support patients, but clinicians and researchers. And Gensler’s designs for a ground-breaking new cancer treatment and research district - submitted for planning last month by developers Aviva Capital Partners and Socius - is a prime example.
Proposals for the £1.2bn district, which would be built on a 12-acre site at The London Cancer Hub where The Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust’s Sutton treatment centre are already in situ, are about as far from a cold, sterile healthcare or research facility as you can get.
That’s not to say the treatment and lab spaces, of which there will be 1 million sq ft comprising wet labs, large-scale provisions for global pharmaceutical companies and smaller, flexible labs for start-ups, are not suitably clinical or fit for purpose.
It is how these world-class scientific facilities have been framed as part of the wider scheme that elevates them from impersonal and isolated to connected and human-centred.
Rather than being cut off from the rest of the district, the treatment and research centres will be woven in and around pockets of healthy homes, acres of green space comprising 150 new mature trees, a 1km running trail, restaurants, cafes, a creche, neuro-diverse friendly environments and mothers’ rooms. All designed to be easily accessible for patients and staff alike to promote activity, recovery and to foster human connection.
It is, in short, a life sciences hub that celebrates and supports life.
“The London Cancer Hub is more than a development,” says Richard Harrison, co-managing director, principal at Gensler. “It’s a bold placemaking vision for the future of science. By blending low-carbon design, vibrant public spaces, and cutting-edge facilities, we aim to realise a true global destination for innovation and impact, designed to transform and accelerate the future of cancer research.”
There can be little question that such a carefully considered focus on human-centred design will be vitally important for patients. The widespread success of the aforementioned Maggie’s Centres attests to that.
But there is also much to be said about the impact these places and spaces have on the clinicians and researchers working within them - particularly when scientific discovery is paramount.
It is one of the greatest misconceptions within the built world that life sciences buildings need to be cold, clinical fortresses, says Fred Pilbrow, senior founding partner at architectural practice Pilbrow & Partners and the designer behind the world-famous Francis Crick Institute in London. It is arguably an even greater misconception that the people working within those buildings don’t want, or indeed don’t need, to work in places and spaces that have been designed with human beings in mind.
“Scientists are humans, too,” adds Pilbrow. “While the lab environments have obviously got to be quite clinical and generic, collaboration spaces in life sciences buildings can, in contrast, be much richer and more materially diverse. I want these workplaces to be sensual and stimulating, not soulless.”
If anything, spaces in the life sciences and biotech sectors need to deliver more than traditional commercial buildings when it comes to end-user satisfaction. With very particular skill-set requirements, attracting and retaining the best talent and the brightest minds is everything. Human-centred spaces that promote well-being, collaboration and the sharing of ideas and information are not just a nice-to-have. They are of paramount importance to globally significant scientific discoveries and breakthroughs.
With the right vision, designers and resources, the opportunities to deliver a fresh tranche of modern, human-centred life sciences schemes are vast. With 27.5m sq ft of space currently in the development pipeline across the Golden Triangle - the name given to the area between London, Oxford and Cambridge widely considered the centre of the UK life sciences sector - alone, the next generation of modern life sciences space is hitting the market.
This includes British biotech company Bicycle Therapeutics’ HQ in Cambridge complete with Lego walls and meeting rooms named after Game of Thrones locations designed by Pilbrow & Partners and overseen by design consultancy Greenspace, Scott Brownrigg’s Daubeny Project – a three-storey lab complete with a café and coworking space due to complete for the Oxford Science Park in 2026 – and Sheppard Robson’s flexible campus in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire for science incubator TTP.
As for the smaller, more focussed spaces and places designed with an unfaltering commitment to supporting people in the face of great fear, pain and uncertainty? They simply cannot be overestimated.
And there is a building in west London that has shaped everything I believe about the power of architecture to prove it.
Emily Wright is a real estate, architecture and design journalist freelancing for titles including The Times, Wallpaper*, The Spaces, WIRED and GQ. She is also Head of Content at CREtech.
You’re absolutely right about Maggie’s. It’s such a wonderful vision for how we could create spaces that centre health and wellbeing. It’s a powerful counter to the sterile, transactional approach of designing spaces for treatment and discharge. With people living longer with long-term conditions, it seems sensible to move to spaces that support wellbeing.