HALLIDAY CLARK ARCHITECTS’ Post

Great news for this amazing student accommodation we have worked on for a number of years! Putting students wellbeing at the forefront of the design. DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT AT CARLTON HILL The Carlton Hill project is located adjacent to the Leeds inner city ring road sitting between the city centre and the University of Leeds main campus. It has been a student accommodation scheme since 2003, when a four storey shared townhouse scheme was designed by HALLIDAY CLARK ARCHITECTS for Pickard Properties, a well established Leeds based student development company, managed by Unipol Student Homes. The scheme has proved to be extremely popular, providing 253 student bedrooms to Leeds Beckett University and Leeds Arts University students whose campuses are within 3-minute walk from the site. Whilst popular, trends in student accommodation have shifted over the years with demand for en suite bedroom accommodation and fewer shared bedrooms and facilities fuelling a more space hungry marketplace. To avoid large capital spends, many universities have outsourced accommodation into the private sector proving in lieu an underwrite or nominations agreement as security to the developer to enable external funding to be obtained. Carlton Hill was not immune to this pressure and although the accommodation was fully let and in excellent condition, having been regularly updated and constantly maintained by Unipol, with a 25 year lease renewal fast approaching there became an opportunity to assess current demands for an increase demand in modern en suite accommodation. This demand was particularly focussed on undergraduate accommodation for UK based University of Leeds students in contrast to the propensity of studio apartment developments being constructed for the overseas student market, which carry a dramatic increase in monthly rental charges. The decision was taken initially to explore the use of adjoining land, not within the developer’s ownership to expand the existing development to a scheme of circa 500 bed spaces but due to a wish not to engage in the development by the adjoining landowner, the decision was taken to explore the demolition and full-scale redevelopment of the site to create a brand new undergraduate cluster flat scheme creating circa 600 bed spaces. This presented a fantastic opportunity for Halliday Clark to consider a scheme from scratch that had the wellbeing of students at its heart with every design decision from layout to paint colours based upon a desire to support students and visitor’s wellbeing. Read more about the design of Carlton Hill and students wellbeing: https://lnkd.in/eq8BdhZ9 #studentwellbing #mentalhealthawareness #studentaccommodation #leeds #architecture #intelligentarchitecture

Charlotte Ratcliffe BSc (Hons)

Manager @ Visual Blinds | Psychology Degree

6mo

Nice! 👍🏼 

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