Description:

The Round Foundry site in Leeds has been designated by the Building Design Partnership as an Urban Village - promoting sustainable development to facilitate the regeneration of this inner-city area.  The mixed-use site combines restored listed buildings with new buildings to provide domestic accommodation, commercial office space and retail outlets. 

Work has commenced on one of the latest additions to the site, the appropriately-named Green Building, which incorporates the latest environmentally friendly technologies.  Key features of this £8.5m development include: a biomass boiler which uses wood pellets as a fuel, optimum use of natural light and ventilation, use of a borehole for renewable cooling and the use of "harvested" rainwater.  The centrepiece of the Round Foundry project, the scheme, has received a BREAM “excellent” rating for its efforts to mitigate the environmental impacts of its development. 

Issue: The development is situated within a conservation area and affects the setting of a grade II* listed building.  

Strategy: From an early stage, English Heritage worked with developers to encourage the identification of its historic character.  This was used to inform the design of the new scheme and to identify which structures could be demolished, to facilitate this new build whilst still maintaining the overall historic character of this important area.  

Outcome: This development has been designed to be sympathetic to its historic context.  Wherever possible, original elements have been retained using traditional materials and techniques to preserve the remnants of the original 18th Century engineering works. These have been incorporated alongside new buildings (such as the Round Foundry) - designed in a modern, contemporary way.