Reference visit to the University of Leeds

11 February 2025

Strategic Estate Planning, Design and Managing the Challenges of the 21^st - Century University

Introduction
This visit explored the approach of University of Leeds working with academic and professional services colleagues to deliver new academic environments in a time of ever-changing challenges including pedagogy, climate change, student numbers and the digital world.

Overview
The University of Leeds traces its roots back to 1874 with the establishment of Yorkshire College of Science. It was given its royal charter in 1904 and is has grown to become one of the largest universities in the UK.

The main campus in Leeds, comprising around 98 acres (40 ha), has buildings of different ages and styles. Perhaps most famous is the iconic Roger Stevens Building, part of the modernist campus masterplan designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, and built from 1963–75, the largest concentration of buildings by the firm after the Barbican in London.

The University has undertaken major expansion from 2008, with substantial capital investment in new buildings and in refurbishment and expansion of existing buildings. Reflecting on the changing priorities and pressures of the current times, the University is carrying out a major strategic estate planning exercise and implementing strategies to meet its zero carbon and digital objectives.

The University of Leeds - Planning for the Future
The day started with a welcome by Ann Allen, Director of Innovation and Campus at the University, who outlined the academic ambitions for the university, the characteristics of the main campus in Leeds and recent buildings to be visited, and the ambitious strategic estate planning exercise, part of which was being held over three days in an adjacent building as staff, students and members of the community were being invited to contribute their thoughts and ideas to future plans and priorities (Ref 1).

Presentations were provided by the Associated Architects and ADP on the Esther Simpson Building - a teaching and student-focused building for the University of Leeds Business School and the School of Law -, and the Henry Bragg Building designed to support the University’s philosophy and ambitions for innovative and collaborative research.

The briefs for buildings were ambitious and the architects had risen to the challenge in providing high quality buildings, with well-designed public spaces and academic facilities that allowed flexibility for changes in future use.

Key aspects of the designs included the Esther Simpson Building

• The relationship with the adjacent buildings, at a pivotal junction between the University’s Main Campus and the Western Campus, working with the planners to articulate the height of the building, which was a particular challenge. The Building faces outwards as part of a strategy to open up the campus to local communities.

• Implementation of the sustainability strategy within the building, including minimising embodied carbon and the creation of a carbon budget for the project.

• Use of pre-cast panels, which was particularly successful during the period of the pandemic restrictions.

• Art in the entrance landscaped area – a collaboration between the Spanish sculptor, Juanjo Novella and the University’s Professor of Poetry, Simon Armitage.

• The combination of specialist facilities for the Business School, including trading rooms and spaces which local companies can use, and of centrally-timetabled teaching rooms including a major lecture theatre and a large Harvard-style theatre.

• The café which has become a lively campus/community hub, with a real buzz about it.

• A minor detail – windowsills that are deep enough to double up as informal seating for students.

• The connection into the old Mining Institute Building, with its fine Art Deco façade, including an additional floor to the top.

• As with the Esther Simpson Building, the building is on the edge of the campus, facing out onto a major road, and, with its landscaped areas, seeks to open up the campus to local communities. It also links with the adjacent Innovation Building.

• Art inside and outside the building, which internally links with the scientific disciplines in the building and externally to Sir William Bragg himself with the sculpture ‘The Worlds of If’ by Sara Barker celebrating the pioneering work of Sir William Bragg in X-ray crystallography.

• Implementation of a sustainability strategy, including embodied carbon.

• Creation of a triple-height basement for specialist scientific research, which is light and spacious, and design to be changed and altered to meet the different, and often exceptionally demanding environmental, acoustic and vibration constraints for different specialist research equipment.

• Provision of ‘Fallow Space’ for groups to bid to use the space based on the research outcomes from the proposed collaboration, which is already achieving positive research results with translation into commercial use, particularly in the health field.

• The full height central atrium, with its lighting feature and artworks, which is also open to the public, which was buzzing with activity, and the good use of timber throughout the building.

Presentations following the visits focused on the ongoing project to develop the physical strategy for the future in the context of changing future pedagogies, different student experiences and digital transformation, on the development of, and the substantial investment in, the strategy for a Net Zero Campus by 2030 and the major investment in new digital infrastructure that is secure and resilient, particularly against cyber-attack, and integrated with the physical estate.

Key aspects include

•  A positive strategy to learn from each other and to learn from users, hence ‘Campus Reimagined’ in the adjacent building, which was seeking to obtain as many different views as possible.

• Creating Spaces which are loosely defined, with a strategy to allow the users to define them, an approach which challenges conventional planning.

• Implementation of a programme of prototype environments and trials, recognising that they are experiments and it is OK to fail, and positively learn the lessons from them.

• Using the wider expertise of the University, for example knowledge embedded in the School of Earth and Environment and in the School of Engineering has been invaluable to develop a geothermal strategy and to champion aspects of the zero-carbon strategy.

• Developing a strategy for Zero-Carbon which is prioritised and based on financial and carbon return and is embedded in the University. Buro Happold’s assistance has been key at the University and one key learning, in the University’s context, is that investment in systems, including progressive reduction in use of the existing district heating mains, achieves higher benefits than investment in building fabric to existing buildings, unless needed for maintenance. Leeds has an overarching Climate Plan which is regularly reviewed by knowledgeable experts in the University’s research community, so that it is challenged and amended to incorporate the latest research in the field.

• Collaboration between digital and physical aspects of estates planning for future investment strategies.

Speakers

University of Leeds
Ann Allen, Director of Innovation and Campus Development, University of Leeds
James Dixon-Gough, Head of Net Zero Strategy, University of Leeds
Masud Khokhar, University Librarian and Keeper of the Brotherton Collection, University of Leeds
Julie Mair, Climate Plan Research Engagement Officer, University of Leeds
Jerry Lee, Faculty Director of Operations, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Leeds.
David Oldroyd, interim Deputy Director (Development), University of Leeds
Jason Preston, Director of IT Delivery, University of Leeds
Professor John Preston, Professor in Rail Transport, University of Leeds
Jennifer Wilson, Director of Campus Innovation: Master planning, Asset Management and Sustainability, University of Leeds.
Sarah Verbickas, Faculty Operations Director, Leeds University Business School (LUBS)

Associated Architects
Paul King, Associate Director, Associated Architects
Craig Reed Craig, Director, Associated Architects, Leeds Office

ADP
Jon Roylance, Higher Education Sector Director, ADP
Keir McNeil, ADP, Studio Director for Manchester

Buro Happold
Shaun Scholey, Associate Director, Buro Happold

The University Design Forum extends its thanks to the University of Leeds for organising and sponsoring the event, to all the speakers and all those who supported the visit, and to the delegates for an excellent visit and discussion.

Written by Ian Caldwell. and images credited to Simon Fraser.