Arena designs attacked for 'lack of architectural thinking'

Andrew Robinson

OUTLINE designs for the Leeds Arena have failed to impress a group of architecture experts who advise the Government.

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) has told Leeds Council there needs to be a “step change in the quality of design thinking”.

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In a letter to the council, CABE said: “Although the size and volume of the arena could work well on this site in principle, there is a lack of the architectural thinking within the principles set out in the design and access statement for the appearance of the building.

“This does not give us confidence that the arena building will achieve the high level of architectural quality that a significant new civic building in Leeds city centre should aspire to. We feel that there needs to be a step change in the quality of design thinking about this major new building for Leeds.”

CABE said plans for a public space should be reviewed, adding: “We do not yet think that the basic principles of the layout, in terms of positioning the building on the site and creating a successful public space around it, have been successfully resolved.”

CABE said the movements of vehicles around the scheme “do not appear to have been taken fully into consideration”.

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Their letter went on: “More work is needed to develop a clear strategy to define the relationships between the site, traffic infrastructure, the city centre and neighbourhoods on the northern side of the ring road.

CABE said the design proposal for a public square “appears to be a vast area of left-over space, which does not relate well to the buildings around it”.

The watchdog body also said that two development plots along Claypit Lane ought to be integral to the overall plan and said “the line of the planning application site boundary appears arbitrary; it does not have any obvious relationship to the form of the arena, the public space or the existing context”.

CABE said it could not support the planning application, concluding: “More thought is needed in order to define how the arena building relates to the city around it and how open space and architecture will work together successfully.”

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Last night, council leader Andrew Carter said more detailed and “exciting” design plans would be released shortly “which we think CABE will be more comfortable with”.

He said the design process was an evolutionary one and that an outline planning application was favoured to keep the planning process moving and on schedule.