PLACES
Shaping my city.
Leeds.
Clockwise from left: Tailors Corner, Trinity Shopping Centre, Leeds Building Society, New Merrion House and Victoria Quarter.
Director Russel Greenwood shares some of the transformative projects that have helped to make Yorkshire’s largest and fastest-growing city an exciting, dynamic place celebrating its heritage.
LET'S TALK
RusselGreenwood@hoarelea.com
HOARE LEA & LEEDS
We set up our Leeds office more than 30 years ago and today it houses a supergroup of MEP engineers and specialist experts committed to the region and passionate about preserving its past as well as powering forward in a sustainable fashion. We have a rich project history in Leeds, a part of the world where big business and beautiful countryside collide, and we have forged fruitful relationships with lots of like-minded changemakers.
From city centre...
Tailors Corner.
COMPLETE
We’ve seen a big push on refurbishment and this seven-storey Grade A workspace is a contemporary yet sympathetic reinvention of a recognisable red-brick landmark, bringing the handsome heritage gem back to life and helping local businesses thrive. The former fabric warehouse, in Leeds City Centre Conservation Area, is moments from the Channel 4 HQ and Cycle Superhighway, and has a roof terrace with skyline views.
Trinity Shopping Centre.
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Pioneering placemaking in action. Opened in 2013, this set the benchmark for shopping centres worldwide with its hybrid design. Trinity East was a new-build on the site of the former Trinity and Burton Arcades, with Trinity West a redevelopment of Leeds Shopping Plaza. We supported extensive internal remodelling to create a naturally ventilating three-storey leisure area. Our work spanned years and helped realise the philosophy behind the project. Bringing 65 new brands to the city, Trinity Leeds has been celebrated as the reason for the city’s revitalised retail market and for growing its status to one of the UK’s top shopping venues.
Leeds Building Society.
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One of the nicest, most inclusive clients I’ve worked with. They live and breathe their social purpose and the refurbishing of their HQ strongly focused on occupant wellbeing. It’s a highly visual space with various work areas and garden breakout spaces for informal meetings. As well as their carbon plan for an all-electric building with a green renewables-generated electricity supply, resilience was at the core of the brief as the building sits within the local flood plain adjacent to the River Aire. The basement was protected to allow safe evacuation while maintaining key systems and business operations which allow the building to be re-occupied at short notice.
New Merrion House.
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This one-stop shop for local residents – including planning and child support services – was part of Leeds City Council’s drive to reuse and repurpose. Centralising the council’s primary functions in a high-quality, multi-storey space, it maximises financial and energy efficiency. The project focused on extending Merrion House to accommodate the council for CAT A and CAT B fit-out, achieving a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ standard. The works saw the refurbishment of existing office space across 13 floors, with a new-build extension across seven floors. They also feature combined heat and power engines which include provision to connect to the Leeds District Heating Network.
Victoria Quarter.
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When Harvey Nichols expanded outside of London, it picked the Grade II* listed Victoria Quarter – AKA ‘Knightsbridge of the North’ – for its first outpost. The 19th-century arcade was rebuilt in the 1990s as an upmarket shopping district and in 2016 merged with the new Victoria Gate complex to become one of northern England’s largest premium retail venues, with ornamental roof, curved shopfronts and glazed brick design. The network of interconnected spaces was key to regeneration – redeveloping a historically deprived area with a programme of restoration and reuse including the commission of Europe’s largest work of stained glass, by Brian Clarke.
Clockwise from left: Richmond Hill Academy & Swillington Primary School, DIY SOS Big Build: Getaway Girls, Kirkstall Forge & Number One, Temple & Globe Point, Springwell Leeds Academy SEMH Schools and Drapers Yard.
To the wider city area...
Academy & Swillington Primary School.
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This is one of only a handful of certified Passivhaus projects in the UK, and certainly the largest example of the design methodology pioneered in Germany to minimise energy use in heating and cooling (and therefore making them cheap to run). Serving 630 students, it has a specialist autistic spectrum condition facility for 16 students as well as a nursery.
DIY SOS Big Build: Getaway Girls.
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Having worked all over the world, but always lived in or around Leeds, I couldn’t be more passionate about our work to improve the social value of the area’s buildings and spaces. We were involved in the brilliant Getaway Girls project in Seacroft last year, supporting vulnerable women and girls, and for a Children in Need special we helped the BBC’s DIY SOS team build a new base which includes a creche, a music and media studio and counselling rooms as well as a garden.
Kirkstall Forge & Number One.
IN PROGRESS
This new neighbourhood was created for the wider Leeds area around Britain’s longest continually used industrial site – a derelict iron forge founded in the 13th century by Cistercian monks. The 57-acre mixed-use development features 1,050 houses and apartments with access to their woodland perimeter which makes for a great exercise trail connecting to existing walks and extending the river footpath. Residents also enjoy a gym, playgrounds, the development’s commercial, retail and leisure draws, and an open meadow and railway bridge linking to the fields and canal towpath. As for ambitious riverside development Number One Kirkstall Forge – a short commute from the city centre, Bradford and the Yorkshire Dales – this is the first of three office blocks offering Grade A workspace focused on empowering users.
Temple & Globe Point.
IN PROGRESS
Breathing new life into Leeds’ historical industrial base – south of the river where the boat taxis sail to and fro – Temple is a large-scale regeneration of a brownfield site once defined by the textile and manufacturing industries. Redesigned as a new destination close to the city core, within easy reach of the rail station plus canalside walks and cycle routes, this vibrant live-work community is focused on people, with over 300 creative businesses, independent cafés and restaurants, pharmacies, express supermarkets and boutique shops. The NABERS-rated Globe Point office building – one of the first to adopt the ‘Design for Performance’ approach – acts as the gateway to the Temple neighbourhood and provides a collaborative space for working.
Springwell Leeds Academy SEMH Schools.
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When OFSTED placed the city’s schools for social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) into ‘special measures’, it was clear to Leeds Council that radical improvement for the specialist schooling provision was needed. They wanted to enhance facilities with three new schools strategically located in northern, southern and eastern suburbs on the city’s outskirts, serving the entire area. The design was based on the successful model adopted in Barnsley at the Springwell Academy, with the challenge to bring together the concurrent design of three similar facilities with a single deadline while maximising repeatability and standardisation. Together these schools enable more young people’s needs to be met, closer to home, radically improving outcomes for the city’s most vulnerable children aged 5-16.
Drapers Yard.
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There’s a rich seam of health, science and digital talent in Leeds – home to one of the UK’s largest concentrations of medical device companies. This former warehouse facilitates the testing of next-generation medicines that improve lives – an exciting environment including a 100-bed clinic and biodiversity-promoting green sedum roof, that highlights the city’s growth as a life sciences leader. The new UK office headquarters for Labcorp, which worked on Covid-19 vaccines, and gold-standard clinical pharmacology investigational unit, encourage enhanced scientific outcomes and the clinical trial testing that became all the more vital post-pandemic. Stationed in the Temple masterplan area, they have not only provided employment opportunities but also kickstarted high-value economic development.
Illustration: Kate Miller