'Just come in': 30 years of Maggie’s centres
About the exhibition
What to expect
Founded in 1995 by Maggie Keswick Jencks, Maggie’s is a charity that works with leading architects to rethink how spaces for cancer support can be designed.
Inspired by Maggie’s life as a writer, gardener, and designer, each centre is shaped around light, warmth, domesticity, and a close connection to nature, placing people at its heart.
Today, Maggie’s is a network of more than 30 centres across the UK and internationally Seventeen centres have been recognised through our awards programme, celebrating architecture’s contribution to people and society.Marking 30 years of Maggie’s and 60 years of the RIBA Awards, this exhibition celebrates a selection of RIBA Award-winning Maggie’s centres recognised for their exceptional social, cultural, and civic value.
Through a new photographic commission, Tabitha Jussa documents these centres and the everyday moments of comfort, conversation, and pause that unfold within them. Working with large-format film photography, analogue darkroom prints and cyanotypes made from plants gathered in Maggie’s centre gardens, Jussa’s work looks closely at the spaces between inside and out, arrival and departure, and the way their architecture and landscapes can help put people at ease, encouraging visitors to ‘just come in’.
Alongside these images are reflections from Maggie's centre users, offering personal insights into what these spaces have meant to them, as well as Jussa’s own reflections on the responsibility of documenting places of care. Together, these photographs and reflections reveal the power of thoughtfully designed environments and how they can offer dignity and connection in times of uncertainty.
