Maggie’s Centre, Raigmore Hospital, Inverness

Timber engineering with metaphorical meaning

The timber engineered building is actually two overlapping vesica shapes – one creating the main building and the other forming a garden space to create a flowing outside-inside space.  There is actually a metaphorical meaning for the two overlapping shapes as it represents the metaphase of cell subdivision, where two cells materialise from one.

Strict attention to detail to provide accuracy

The timber frame for Maggie’s Centre in Inverness is fabricated largely from softwood with a plywood skin.  The walls have a ten-degree rake on them and the majority of the surfaces in the building are curved. Transforming the design from a 3D CAD model into the structural skeleton for the building was carried out in our framing yard in Wiltshire.  Each module was systematically marked full scale onto the setting out floor of the workshop so that critical dimensions could be accurately transferred to the material itself.

Externally the building is copper which once naturally weathered turns green which is more accurately called vermilion.

In 2006 the building won the Andrew Doolan Award – Best Building in Scotland