though a garden designed by Christine Facer Hoffman. According to Hoffman, the velvety folds in its lawn symbolise cancer’s ups and downs and the motif of the sigmoid curve, employed as a tool in cancer treatment, is used here as a metaphor for life. You approach the entrance through
a deep trellised screen and gate; something that tried to look cool or iconic might have seemed comical next to the gingerbread-house lodge. If you dismiss the trellis’s square grid as a MacCormac trademark that belongs to another era, you’ll be in for some surprises. MacCormac is a past master of this type of drama. He anticipates patients proceeding further every time they visit: first as far as the office, then venturing into the main space and finally exploring the yoga room beyond and the pods. Tese circular retreats are described by MacCormac as ‘slightly Hobbit-like’. Te glass-roofed entrance lobby has no institutionalising reception area and opens onto the principal space, a long communal area and dining room with a large open kitchen at its west end and a zone that can be used for smaller group activities, to the east. With a glazed inglenook that, in conjunction with hinged oak screens, demarcates this from the main communal area, MacCormac returns to his exploration of the idea of a building within a building, seen at the chapel at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Tis space has a vigorous structural
parti, with long-span beams on its main axis, supported by eight Miesian cruciform columns. Concealed steel joists cantilever from these beams, >>
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Te circular retreats are described as ‘Hobbit-like’
aj 02.12.10
First floor 1. Office 2. Bathroom 3. Store
Ground floor 1. Kitchen 2. Dining room 3. Inglenook 4. Yoga room 5. River retreat 6. Terrace
7. Main entrance 8. Bathroom 9. Library
10. Staff entrance 11. Meeting room 12. Garden refuge 13. Entrance courtyard
2 3 3 1
1 N First-floor plan 0 2m
5 6
4 1 2 3 7 12 9
Left Inglenook with pietra serena sandstone hearth to match floor. Cruciform columns with European oak infills in quadrants penetrate the
13 10 11
continuous cornice which, like the transom of a
Ground-floor plan
traditional Japanese domestic interior, establishes the scale of the room.
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