Central Square

Location

Leeds

Main contractor

Wates

Architects

DLA Architects

Products

Corium Brick Cladding

Wates Construction Central Square Wellington Street Leeds 3

The project

A new development at Wellington Street marks a recent surge in demand for commercial space in Leeds.

Designed by local Leeds architects DLA Design, Central Square provides 220,000 sq.ft of much-needed flexible Grade A office space at upper levels, and 30,000 sq.ft of retail and leisure provision at ground floor. The former Royal Mail site has been developed by Wates Construction as two blocks, one 11 storeys and the second 8 storeys, linked by large sloped curtain wall creating a large winter garden and atrium that forms an integral part of a new public realm extending across the entire site.

The layout of the £100m new build scheme from Wates Construction has been driven by two clear objectives: firstly, to create a usable and vibrant new public space at the heart of the development with improved pedestrian connections between Wellington Street and Whitehall Road; secondly to infill the street-scape's along Wellington Street and Whitehall Road in a manner that successfully mediates between the scale, mass and materiality of existing buildings.

Wates Construction Central Square Wellington Street Leeds 9

Working closely with the architects at DLA and supply chain partners Wates, Taylor Maxwell assisted with the specification and delivery of Corium, a mechanically fixed brick cladding system manufactured by Wienerberger, to the scheme. The window columns on the Wellington Street aspect of the development were clad using the Corium system in a traditional red coloured brick that would blend seamlessly with the existing architecture in the immediate vicinity of Central Square.

The window column units were manufactured and clad off-site in Ireland and pre-pointed in a local factory, before being delivered to site where the columns were then craned into position by McMullen Facades. Manufacturing the units in this manner as a pre-fabricated solution under quality-controlled factory conditions, allows for efficient construction without delays due to adverse weather conditions, lessens materials wastage and can dramatically reduce site construction time in comparison to a traditional build.