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The latest Maggie’s cancer care centre to complete is a concrete spiral in southwest Wales.

Maggie’s South West Wales is located in the grounds of Singleton Hospital in Swansea and will open on 9 December.

Following the death of Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, British architects Garbers & James delivered the building in accordance with his original design.

A kitchen can be found inside the spiral’s central drum, where anyone affected by cancer is invited for a cup of tea and a chat.

Private rooms and terraces occupy the two wings and are naturally lit through high-level windows that follow the shape of the curved metal roof.

Maggie’s was founded fifteen years ago and this is the latest of three centres opening in the UK this year, following one in Glasgow by OMA and another in Nottingham by CZWG and Paul Smith.

Photography is by Adam Hollier.

Here’s some more text from Maggie’s:

Maggie’s South West Wales to open on Friday, December 9

The official opening heralds a new era of cancer care and support for people affected by cancer across the South Wales region, bringing hope and solace to thousands.

Located at Singleton Hospital in Swansea, Maggie’s South West Wales will complement the treatment provided at the hospital, offering an evidence-based programme of support to help people through the emotional and practical complexities of a cancer diagnosis.

Maggie’s South West Wales is the tenth Maggie’s Centre and is one of five centres planned for England and Wales as part of the ambitious £15m Joy of Living fundraising campaign, spearheaded by Maggie’s patron Sarah Brown.

The stunning new centre was designed by Japanese architect Dr Kisho Kurokawa, of Kisho Kurokawa Architect & Associates. Sadly, Dr Kisho Kurokawa died in October 2007 but completed his outline scheme designs for Maggie’s South West Wales shortly before his death. Thore Garbers and Wendy James of Garbers & James met with him whilst still alive and undertook to deliver his project as executive architects. The building is surrounded by a landscape design created by Kim Wilkie that has been implemented by Terra Firma Consultancy Ltd.

Dr Kisho Kurokawa who was a great friend of Maggie Keswick Jencks (founder of Maggie’s), based his design on the concept of a cosmic whirlpool, representing a strong symbol of life, with everlasting forces swirling around a still centre. The spiral segments of the building conceptually engage alternate segments of earth and water, separated by shafts of warm light. Hence the concept provided a figure for the configuration of both the interior and the exterior of the building. The central elliptical drum provides a calm, warm social heart to the building, with the wings and associated external terraces providing more personal and focussed space from which to contemplate the landscape. The whole composition is in an elevated position, next to woodland, on the Singleton Hospital site.

The late Dr Kisho Kurokawa said: “The new Maggie’s Centre will come out of the earth and swing around with two arms like a rotating galaxy. One side will welcome the visitor and lead to the other side, which embraces nature, the trees, rocks and water. A place set apart, as Maggie said of a garden. The connection to the cosmos and contacts between East and West – two motives that Maggie and I shared – are in the design. I hope she would have liked it.”

Situated next to the South West Wales Cancer Centre at Singleton Hospital, Maggie’s will serve people living within the South West Wales Cancer Network. The network covers approximately 900,000 people within the regions of Aberystwyth, Haverfordwest, Swansea, Powys, Carmarthen, Llanelli, Neath, Port Talbot and Bridgend. In this area, there are more than 3,000 new cases of cancer a year. Uniquely, Maggie’s South West Wales will be the first centre to collaborate with the local Medical Genetics service to offer information and practical support to people who are at risk of cancer, based on family history. Maggie’s has had an interim facility on site since 2006.

The centre has been constructed by Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, as main contractor, supported by a number of specialist sub-contractors. The wider design team has included Arup, as structural engineers and KJTait as building services engineers. Ramboll has provided civil engineering support, and the cost consultant was Turner & Townsend.

While the American architecture and construction businesses might be on something of an emotional roller coaster over the past few years, with massive dips in billings met with occasional, but unfortunately never very lasting, boom periods (we remind you of the latest numbers from the AIA‘s Architecture Billings Index), the one thing the industry might have to hold on to is that Porsche will just keep building more and more massive projects. Just a few days after the automotive company announced that it would be building a large complex and test track for itself in Los Angeles, as well as a huge new headquarters in Atlanta, its been unveiled that its Porsche Design Group arm will be building, with developer Gil Dezer, a new residential tower in the Miami area, in Sunny Isles Beach. The Miami Herald reports that the 57-story building will cost an estimated $650 million to build, with each unit coming in somewhere in the neighborhood of $9 million. What does that amount get you, and why is a firm who is most well known for designing consumer goods now behind a large architectural project? Two words: glass elevators. The tower is set to feature lifts that will not only take them to their condos, but do so while they’re sitting in their cars. Here’s a bit:

Here is how it will work: After the resident pulls over and switches off the engine, a robotic arm that works much like an automatic plank will scoop up the car and put it into the elevator. Once at the desired floor, the same robotic arm will park the car, leaving the resident nearly in front of his front door. Voila, home!

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Découverte de Jonathan Leijonhufvud, un photographe spécialisé dans l’architecture. Né en Suède et ayant grandi en Chine, ce dernier parvient à magnifier les bâtiments et les paysages. Une sélection de ses clichés est à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.

Previously on Fubiz

• Japan Love Hotels
• Michael Levin
• Shanghai Museum of Glass

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Dezeen in Israel: following our recent visit to Tel Aviv, here’s an entirely white house in nearby Ramat Gan by local architects Pitsou Kedem.

Glass walls are concealed behind the white curtain exterior of the three-storey residence, but can be glimpsed through horizontally slashed openings.

The entrance to the house is located on the first floor, where residents cross a bridge over the garden to enter an open-plan living and dining room that occupies the whole floor.

The building is set into the sloping ground, so while the garden is at the lowest level, an outdoor swimming pool is situated just outside glass doors at the rear of the first floor.

You can see more stories about Israeli architecture and interiors here, or if you’re interested in furniture and product design from Israel you can check out our special feature here.

Photography is by Amit Geron.

Here’s some more text from Pitsou Kedem:

Box? Object? House!

A private family residence situated in an urban environment. In essence, the house is a closed, white box, devoid of any decorative or ornamental elements. Within the “box”, long, horizontal lines have been opened which connected the house to its surroundings and which created, within the structure, a feeling as if an entire life had been frozen in time.

The openings make it possible to look out into the surrounding environment, or look into the house. They allow natural light to penetrate the structure or artificial lighting to seep out, into the surroundings, during the hours of darkness.

In fact, the house constitutes a pure and immaculate bubble which invites those using the spaces into a world of design values that are radically different from those of the surrounding, chaotic, urban world.

The grooved and perforated envelope constitutes a type of polished and minimalistic object which brings out the monastic and minimized language that the designer chose to use. The façade facing the street is remarkable in its restraint and the desire to create an exact and restrained show.
In the direction of the surrounding neighborhood, the other facades are built from large white walls with the random lines opened up in the walls through which the sunlight penetrates the walls, creating drama, motion and dynamism in a space that is otherwise so very meditative.

The polished form, the perfection shown in every detail and the fusion of the different materials, the monastic language, meticulously styled with great care, provides a feeling that we looking at a flat, almost two dimensional and picturesque bedding.

The various levels and the flow of the various shades of white, along with the geometric performance of the light against the horizontal and vertical surfaces, provide the restrained picture a sense of space and depth.

Bands of light and shade create in this oh so quiet space, a harmonious song and lyric that seems to play between the walls of the structure and which breathes life into the spirit of the silent walls.

The pattern of stripes and the seemingly random cadence chosen – almost seem to represent the rhythm of the light’s movement. The designer used the same pattern that is sometimes seem in two dimensional angles, almost like a graphical logo, both in the details and other places in the home’s spaces such as the fence at the entrance and the various items of woodwork.

Readers have been discussing “the abundance of introverted architecture that is coming out of Japan” recently, so here’s another Japanese house that blocks all views to and from the street but still draws light and air inside.

The single-storey house by Satoshi Kurosaki and APOLLO Architects is located in a residential neighborhood in Hodogaya Ward, Yokohama.

A wall behind the public approach allows for only a glimpse of the private courtyard within.

The windowless perimeter wall and a winding alley from the entrance give privacy to its single resident by leading visitors around the back of the living space.

Black floating steps creep up the courtyard wall to a terrace.

Large glass doors allow in light from the main courtyard and can be slid open to extend the living area.

Like boxes within a box, the living space and bedroom sit as separate elements within the perimeter wall but remain connected to the two courtyards and each other.

Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.

We’ve published a number of stories by APOLLO Architects & Associates including a house that features a pointy overhang and another house with no exterior windows. See all our stories by Apollo Architects and Associates.»

Here’s some more information from the architects:

MUR

This one-storey residence for a single woman is located in a hilly area.

The client requested a house with an internal courtyard that would eliminate the differences in elevation throughout the site while ensuring a sense of privacy and comfort.

In response, we decided to model the facade after a simple box encircled by the walls of the building.

In order to prevent the interior from becoming just a simple one-room space, we considered each of the necessary components to be a “story.”

Opening the door reveals a partial glimpse of the private courtyard that extends beyond the slender window in front of you.

A glass entrance door stands at one end of the long, narrow porch, while the skylight at the top fills the interior with a soft, gentle light.

The house is laid out in such a way that you can bypass and go around the long, narrow alley to arrive at the main living area.

In contrast with the dimensions of the alley, this voluminous space can also be integrated with the internal courtyard when the large sliding door is opened.

The bedroom, a small breakaway space that lines up with the large central portion of the building while being detached from it, also connects to the backyard, which is itself linked to the dressing room.

Click above for larger image

All of these living spaces were designed to invariably face the exterior while also ensuring a certain level of privacy.

Two different spaces and two gardens, laid out with a slight lateral deviation between them: a complex, nuanced interior was created just using a series of simple manipulations.

In contrast to the simple facade that resists being influenced by the exterior environment, a unique, individual and complex worldview takes shape within the interior of the house.

The manifold surprises that emerge from this process are precisely the essence of the “narrative” that we tried to create – the key to coaxing fresh perspectives out of both everyday and extraordinary life experiences.

Architecture: Satoshi Kurosaki/APOLLO Architects & Associates

Project Outline

Location: Hodogaya Yokohama Kanagawa
Date of Completion: Summer 2011

Principal use: private house
Structure: wood
Site area: 276.64m2

Total floor area: 80.39m2 (80.39m2/1F)
Structural engineer: Kenta Masaki
Mechanical engineer:Zennei Shimada

Material information

Exterior finish: acrylic emerson paint
Floor: solid flooring;Tiled/1F

Wall: plaster
Ceiling: plaster