Member Article

Brewster Bye Wins Top RICS Award

A stunning new extra care and dementia centre, designed by Brewster Bye Architects, has been named the region’s best new residential development at this year’s prestigious Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Yorkshire & Humber Awards.

Fern House at Bingley is an 84,000 square foot development that was built on the site of the former Bingley Hospital. It was developed by The Abbeyfield Society and is operated by Abbeyfield The Dales, which provides housing, support and care for people in later life across Yorkshire. Bardsley Construction was the project’s principal contractor.

The development includes 49 extra care apartments and a residential suite, complete with 30 en-suite bedrooms which is dedicated to supporting people living with dementia. It also offers a multi-storey entrance atrium, restaurant, hair and beauty salon, rooftop lounge with spectacular views across the Aire Valley and landscaped courtyard garden areas.

More than 45 of Yorkshire and Humber’s most impressive and community beneficial property schemes battled it out for top honours at the annual RICS Awards, Yorkshire & Humber. TV presenter, Clare Frisby hosted this year’s sell-out ceremony – supported by SIKA – held at the Centenary Pavilion at Leeds United Football Club. Brewster Bye’s Mark Henderson was presented with the award alongside Abbeyfield’s Abdul A Ravat, Jacqueline Bradfield and Gwen Green.

Mark says: “Fern House is an exceptional development that offers an extremely functional, modern and light living environment, with superb facilities. It has set a new benchmark in terms of quality and specification for extra care and dementia centres.

“This award is a fantastic achievement for everyone involved in the project and reinforces Brewster Bye’s reputation as one of the leading practices operating in the residential sector.”

Another Brewster Bye designed project was shortlisted in the community benefit category. The Old Fire Station at Gipton saw a redundant fire station transformed into a state of the art, multi-purpose community centre that now offers a vast range of services to local residents. The project was funded by Jimbo’s Fund, which was established with local charity Leeds Community Foundation by the late Leeds businessman and philanthropist Jimi Heselden.

The building is owned by GFS Community Enterprise, which is a subsidiary of Leeds Community Foundation, and is occupied by a number of local charities as well as offering a community café, a teaching kitchen, an enterprise hub, community space and meeting rooms for hire.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Steven Wright .