Maggie’s Centre, South-west Wales
Dow Jones Architects
The building is predominantly a single-storey stone enclosure, made from Pennant Sandstone, capped with two crystalline glass rooflights. We are particularly interested in the quality of the rust stained Pennant sandstone and the resonance it has with the landscape.
The building is configured around a garden space, which opens out through the stone perimeter to the found woodland that surrounds it.
The idea for the building is that it is like a stone sheep-fold or pre-existing agricultural structure, or an ancient walled garden, located within the wood- land. The simple single-storey stonewall is broken to form full-height windows and doors, and to allow the landscape to drift into the heart of the building.
Once inside the building, the interior is organised as a series of cedar lined boxes that open towards the garden and the central courtyard. At the heart of the plan is a Pennant sandstone fireplace, behind which is the cwtch.
*cwtch is a colloquial Welsh term for ‘hug’.