Award-winning 11 & 12 Wellington Place reflects historic Leeds – a city once synonymous with Britain’s industrial revolution, now a burgeoning finance and business centre. We talk to Andrew Leaver of architects tp bennett about designing one of the most sustainable office developments in the UK. 

“We wanted to create an elegant, sustainable response to the city’s rich industrial heritage of iron foundries, engineering and textile mills,” says Leaver of the new-generation workplace, which is located on the site of a former train station. Key to the context is a single remaining 1850 railway lifting tower, currently being converted into an industrial museum by developer MEPC. Until the station was demolished in 1967, explains Leaver, goods trains would enter along a viaduct where their wagons would be lowered to ground level via a pair of towers. “We interpreted the history of the place to create the new facade rhythms, which reflect the stone coursing patterns of the tower and the metallic bronze and silver tones of railway tracks that once crossed the site,” he says. 

Completed in 2023, Wellington Place’s twin blocks are united at upper levels, creating a single volume while carving out public realm at ground level to enhance permeability and connections. A fabric-first approach led to a BREEAM Outstanding rating, and the building also achieves a NABERS (National Australian Built Environment Rating System) five-star rating for operational energy. 

Warm, metallic tones are carried through to the interior, with powder-coated metal finishes part of a concept based on the changing colours of steel as it cools from casting to solid form. “The interior scheme purposely moved away from a corporate white box appearance to a more hospitality-led, warmer approach to textures, materials and colours,” explains Leaver. The architects also considered health and wellbeing of occupants from first principles, with stairs prioritised above lifts and 9m-tall green living walls in the atria creating calm arrival sequences, air-quality benefits and connection to biophilia. To promote sustainable travel, hospitality-quality shower rooms were incorporated for cyclists and runners, alongside secure cycle storage.

All specifications for Wellington Place was via tp bennett’s library of approved materials, AD Lib. “It’s a searchable platform developed by our sustainability team,” says Leaver. “Our data on the environmental credentials of different products and materials is based on 65 key questions about different aspects of sustainability.”

To find out more about tp bennett’s sustainability approach click here.