Flagship learning centre for university campus gateway
DLA Architecture has completed and handed over the Esther Simpson Building as the flagship new learning centre for Leeds University Business School and School of Law.
The new building forms phase three of a multi-million pound investment by the university to deliver technology-rich and inclusive new learning spaces to better equip students for working in a global environment.
DLA, which has been retained on the University of Leeds Architectural Services Framework for more than 15 years, designed a state-of-the-art new building on Lyddon Terrace as a gateway site to the campus.
The practice visited several European campus locations with the university to draw inspiration from world class facilities and incorporate design features of international repute.
Accommodation includes specialist trading rooms, behaviour labs, collaborative teaching spaces and two large Harvard-style auditoriums, as well as breakout spaces and a new café at ground floor level.
Craig Reed, director and head of learning services at DLA Architecture, said: “We are delighted to have led the design on this celebrated new building to deliver a teaching facility in keeping with Leeds’s growing reputation as an international business centre of excellence.
“This is the next important phase of a wider masterplan for the University of Leeds for which we also designed the Newlyn Building for the Business School as well as the significant upgrade of the Leeds Innovation Centre in the Clarendon Building.”
Steve Gilley, director of estates at The University of Leeds, added: “We’re absolutely delighted with the Esther Simpson Building – it’s a fabulous design that contributes to the university’s wider ambition to create an environment that promotes learning, innovation, and enterprise.
“The building also creates a stunning new gateway for the campus. Our university community will now be able to easily navigate its way from Clarendon Road into the heart of campus in a matter of minutes.
“The route is fully accessible, with newly refurbished pedestrian paths and tactile paving, in addition to a new accessible ramp installed along the route towards Storm Jameson.”
The building is named after a Leeds graduate who spent nearly all her working life helping resettle scholars who fled from totalitarian regimes across the world.
DLA Architecture employs over 75 architects, landscape architects, technologists, and graphic designers. Established over 40 years ago, the practice has offices in Leeds, Manchester and London.
