The Centre is designed by the Pritzker Prize winning architect Rem Koolhaas and his office – the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA).  The garden at the new Centre will be designed by Lily Jencks, daughter of the founders of Maggie’s – Maggie Keswick Jencks and Charles Jencks.

The model for the new centre was unveiled for the first time this weekend, at Maggie’s annual Glasgow Life Walk, in which 350 people participated. This is the fourth outing for the walk, which took on a special new route around Glasgow’s leafy west-end to take in the site of the new centre. 

Laura Lee, Maggie's CEO, said: “It is such exciting news to have received planning permission. The west coast of Scotland has a high incidence of cancer and opening a second Maggie's Centre in the region will make a huge difference to the thousands of families facing such devastating times as a cancer diagnosis.  The design by Rem Koolhaas and his team is truly inspiring and will provide the perfect setting for our programme of support to take place within."

Richard Hollington, Associate at OMA, said: "We are thrilled that the Centre has received planning permission. We spent quite some time evaluating existing Maggie's Centres before coming up with the final design, which we believe encapsulates the philosophy and principles on which the Maggie's Centres are based. We have created a building, which has a holistic, intimate and comforting feel. We hope that our building design will greatly complement the fantastic support that people affected by cancer will receive when visiting the Centre."

Building work will commence in January 2010 on the new Centre and it is estimated that the Centre will open in Spring 2011. The building costs of the Centre have been funded by a generous donation of £2.1million from Walk the Walk Worldwide. 

Nina Barough CBE Founder and Chief Executive of Walk the Walk Worldwide, said: “All of the Walk the Walk team are extremely excited that the Centre has received planning permission.  It is wonderful that The MoonWalk Edinburgh has been so successful in raising money and in turn allowing us to make a difference to the lives of so many people with cancer in Scotland.”

One of Maggie’s primary aims is to make it as easy as possible for people living with cancer to access the information and support needed to help them and their friends and family to build a life with, through and beyond cancer.  When the Beatson Oncology Centre announced that it was moving from the Western Infirmary to a new site at Gartnavel Hospital, it was natural for Maggie’s to investigate if there would be a site nearby.