York Central

York’s medieval streets and city walls are not easily able to accommodate the City of York Council’s aspiration for 20% growth. Yet at the heart of one of the UK’s most historic and desirable cities is a large brownfield site. York Central uses this land to deliver the most significant urban expansion in York's modern history. Radiating from York's railway station and railyards, and immediately adjacent to the city's historic core, York Central is intended as a complement to York's medieval walled city. The overall plans for this site respond to local need, establishing a flexible framework for a piece of city that whilst largely new, will emerge in ways both authentic and familiar.

Our approach was to first take an in depth look at the city itself, to understand its urban grain, built characteristics, material palette, what we termed ‘York-ness’. From this point we were able to develop a flexible parameters based masterplan and a design guide to guide all new development so that new buildings and open spaces are locally rooted and identifiably ‘of York’.

The site is encircled by railway lines making it isolated but also contributing to its effect as a barrier between adjacent neighbourhoods. With an aspiration to create a low car neighbourhood, forging connections particularly for pedestrians and cyclists would be an essential part of the masterplan.

There was an obvious opportunity to use green spaces to manage water, and to support biodiversity and wellbeing. Millennium Green is part of the site and the new development would need to negotiate with and support the future of this key volunteer-led nature space whilst also delivering a key new connection to Water End.

Phased delivery on a site of this scale is inevitable and the masterplan needs to both support this in a way that allowed some future flexibility but at the same safeguard agreed design and placemaking principles through a structure of pre-application and engagement as each phase comes forward for delivery.

This is an ambitious project that will influence both York and the wider region, providing a framework for sustainable urban and economic development that will be built out over 10-15 years.

Outline Planning Permission was granted in April 2019 and the project has secured government investment for delivering site wide infrastructure, a stage that is shortly to be completed. Post-planning, Allies and Morrison remains involved as York Central Design Champion / Lead Masterplan Architect, which involves the support and co-ordination of plot architects’ proposals through peer review as buildings and open spaces come forward. We were also involved with establishing and chairing the York Central Design Review Panel. This role has included review and masterplan compliance, support to the landscape architects responsible for designs for the new urban spaces and park, support during public/stakeholder engagement and pre-application meetings.

We are now working to design the masterplan’s newest office building, a 9,290 sqm ‘Innovation Hub’ which aims to be one of the most sustainable office buildings in the UK, employing a timber frame, natural ventilation and ’passive’ facade to limit energy use. The building is part of Phase 1C which represents the first major phase of development.