Image Credit : Gu Shi Yin
Project Overview
74 created a stand-out – and game-changing - student amenities project for client London and Scottish Student Housing (LSSH) within their new-build Symons House student accommodation block in Leeds, as well as creating the project’s branding and wayfinding. The client had a vision for a study and leisure space that would be unlike anything seen before in this market in terms of quality and sophistication.
The full suite of amenity spaces includes a reception lobby, back-of-house space, study lounge, meeting rooms, library, communal kitchen, toilets, cinema room, gaming lounge and gym, as well as an 8th floor private dining room.
The building, by Leeds-based architectural practice Cunniff Design, takes the form of a reverse L-shape, with seven storeys on its lower horizontal plane and twenty-one on the vertical upright section. Both the building’s ground and lower-ground storeys, where the amenities spaces are located, stand out by being indented from the main building above and also by featuring glazed walls. 74 worked with the building’s unusual angled glazed box base to make the most of views in and through the amenity space.
Project Commissioner
London and Scottish Student Housing
Project Creator
Team
David Holt - Director
Bianca Yousef - Associate Interior Designer
Rob Brown - Interior Designer
Megan Jones - Interior Designer
Project Brief
The interior design needed to represent a step change from the bright-and-cheerful approach that had previously dominated the student amenity sector, with spaces often saturated with primary colours. The brief therefore was to change this paradigm and offer up a new level of sophistication in the market, introducing a high-spec scheme with grown-up colours, great detailing and a pronounced hotel /hospitality influence.
The interiors took initial inspiration from the building’s architecture, where the materials palette references a recognisable local residential vernacular with a broadly 1930s feel, including brushed brick with a pale-yellow tone and bronzed anodised aluminium window frames. The latter detail directly inspired, for example, the use of bronzed metal framework within the interior.
The material treatment for the scheme includes bronze-finish crittal-style doors and glazing, which respond directly to the external metalwork, plus a double-dado rail treatment that further ties into the door and window levels. Large, rectangular lighting rafts in bronze-painted timber continue the metallic allusions. The colour palette features neutral colours throughout with subtle, darker highlight areas in browns, greys, deep blues and olive greens. Planting is incorporated throughout, though in an unregimented way to ensure the space has a relaxing and non-corporate feel.
Project Innovation/Need
The project received wide media recognition for pushing the boundaries in a fast-developing market:
‘A new student accommodation project in Leeds aims to deliver first class amenities apart as far removed from the norm as they get, with brash and bright stereotypes replaced with a cool and sophisticated approach’
(Designer Magazine)
‘74 designs student living at its finest. With a focus on quality materials and a distinct nod to the hospitality sector, this isn’t anything like the student accommodation we remember…’
(MIX Interiors)
Design Challenge
The challenge with this project was to deliver a material quality that equated with the best high-end residential, workspace and hospitality – all within a single, seamless environment, whilst also marrying the interiors perfectly with the scheme’s overall architecture.
The spacious lobby area has a hospitality feel, with an underlit reception desk with a marble laminate top and leather-look binding, featuring studded vertical lines inspired by case goods and travel’s golden era.
Next comes the study lounge with notable domestic references, including wallpaper, a brick slip fireplace, eclectic artwork and contemporary chandeliers. Individual study/meeting rooms have Crittall-style fully-glazed internal walls and doors, and artwork to animate the spaces, as well as eye-catching feature lighting. The next space is a long, relaxed library area with loose furniture and bespoke bookshelf furniture, designed by 74 with angled ‘roof’ sections to underline a domestic feel in a playful way.Opposite are two stand-out areas. First, the communal kitchen and secondly the cinema room, with the same, super-high-spec modular deep seating as used in Everyman Cinemas. The technology includes a top-of-the-range screen, recessed sound bars and high-quality soundproofing.
The final ground floor space is the largest single, continuous space: a gaming lounge with pool and table tennis tables. The space is arranged around a central dry bar with fridges and a high-seating bench, plus a timber and glazing screen reaching from the bar to the ceiling raft above to punctuate the space at its mid-point, with feature lighting to either side.
Sustainability
Symons House is an example of high-standard design, using sustainable solutions wherever possible, from natural materials to a clever biophilic approach that made the project look very special. The building also features a gym, important feature for well-being and mental health, especially in the current period where we’re all spending more time indoors and need to exercise. The words and messages on the gym walls are used to motivate and inspire the residents.
All specified lights are LED, which are up to 80% more efficient than traditional lighting - such as fluorescent and incandescent lights. 95% of the energy in LEDs is converted into light and only 5% wasted as heat. There is also no suspended ceiling in the amenity space, meaning no use of plasterboard, resulting in a more open space, which was both more affordable to build and sustainable to maintain. Local suppliers and manufacturers were used wherever possible throughout the project.
Natural materials, including plenty of timber, brings warmth to the project, whilst we also made use of planting throughout, increasing occupant connectivity to the natural environment through the use of direct nature and thereby improving mental health.
Interior Design - Co-Working & Studio Space
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes, aesthetic presentation and functionality. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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