Detail: Maggie's Manchester Timber Frame

摘要

Nestled within a residential neighborhood at the end of a tree-lined street, the 5,400-square-foot Maggie's Centre in Manchester, England, hosts a variety of intimate spaces, including a kitchen, a living room, and a covered veranda. "It creates a sense of place," says Darron Haylock, a partner at Foster + Partners, which designed the center. Seventeen wooden portal frames form the building's exposed timber structure, creating a central, light-filled atrium flanked by outstretched beams. "The structure is the protagonist," scribbled Lord Norman Foster, HON.FAIA,a Manchester native as well as a cancer survivor, on one early sketch: "Tiptoes lightly on the site."