Leeds Playhouse on shortlist for architecture award

The Leeds Playhouse is among 11 buildings in the region shortlisted for a major architecture award.
Leeds PlayhouseLeeds Playhouse
Leeds Playhouse

The theatre has been transformed from its previous incarnation as the West Yorkshire Playhouse by a “radical reconfiguration” and extension, said the Royal Institute of British Architects, which nominated it for one of its 2020 Yorkshire Awards. The new frontage on St Peter’s Street is said to “open up the building visually” and to reflect “the creativity and diversity” of the activity inside.

It sits on the shortlist alongside the business-facing Nexus unit at Leeds University, which, said the judges, is “a vibrant, inspiring and connected innovation community” which “respects the topography of the site to deliver a sleek, contemporary design”.

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Across the county, the shortlist takes in Huddersfield University’s Barbara Hepworth Building – home to its school of art, design and architecture – and the engineering “Heartspace” at Sheffield University. It also includes Doncaster Enterprise Marketplace, a Grade II-listed structure that had fallen into disrepair. As part of a wider refurbishment of the town’s Wool Market, the council decided to turn the old building into a modern market.

They will be judged by a regional jury, with the winners announced at Sheffield Cutlers’ Hall in June.

A private home – Barrow House, a partially subterranean property in the Lincolnshire Wolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty also makes the shortlist.

Resembling a barn from a distance and surrounded by wildflower meadows, the property has already been named the country’s best individual new house.

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They will be judged by a regional jury, with the winners announced at Sheffield’s Cutlers’ Hall in June.

Peter Cartwright, who chairs the judging panel, said winning criteria would be buildings “which will continue to look good for years to come” and which combined environmental friendliness with low running costs.

“We are very interested in the operation and performance of buildings, as opposed to purely how they look. Their beauty must be more than skin deep,” he added.

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