Greenhouse is an eight-storey, mixed-use block of eco-flats in Beeston, Leeds. The building took its present form in 2010, after renovation of a 1938 development, Shaftesbury House. As Shaftesbury House, the building was noted for its technologically innovative, modernist housing of migrant workers. As Greenhouse, it has been noted for an approach to promoting ecological and social sustainability far ahead of most of the UK building industry.

Shaftesbury House

In the wake of the Great Depression, Leeds was host to large numbers of migrant workers, who were frequently housed in appalling conditions. A programme of slum clearance, partly driven by the Housing Act 1930 and led particularly by Charles Jenkinson, followed, described by the historian Alison Ravetz as 'a heroic age of Leeds history' and fiercely opposed by the Conservative Party.Alison Ravetz, Model Estate: Planned Housing at Quarry Hill, Leeds (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013 [first publ. Croom Helm, 1974). Leeds City Council created the Leeds Model Lodging House in an old dyeworks in 1932, and then created the Shaftesbury House Municipal Hostel as its successor.David Thornton, Leeds: A Historical Dictionary of People, Places and Events (Huddersfield: Northern Heritage Publications, 2013), s.v. Leeds Model Lodging House. Shaftesbury House was officially opened on 15 December 1938, opposite the old Holbeck workhouse. The building shared its name with Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, who introduced the Labouring Classes Lodging Houses Act 1851.

Art Deco in style, the building was an imposing, five-storey brick edifice, designed in 1936 by George Clark Robb,John Baron, 'Slideshow: Leeds leads the way in stylish eco-living', The Guardian (29 July 2011). then senior architectural assistant to R. A. H. Livett.Renzo Riboldazzi, Un'altra modernità: L'Ifhtp e la cultura urbanistica tra le due guerre 1923-1939 (Rome: Gangemi, 2009), p. 178. Square in plan, it contained four small courtyards, as many as 523 bedrooms, and numerous common spaces and shared facilities for laundry, washing, cooking, and dining.'Shaftesbury House', Leodis: A Photographic Archive of Leeds, Subject ID: 2004316_66379947.Greg Wright, 'Transformation for the "dustbin of Leeds" ', Yorkshire Post (11 August 2009). It was designed to house 308 men and 196 women (in separate areas with separate entrances).'Mr R. A. Livett', Official Architecture and Planning, 22.10 (October 1959), 474. It had a different colour scheme for each floor,'Shaftesbury House', Leodis: A Photographic Archive of Leeds, Subject ID: 2004316_66379947. along with over 60 staff, a barber's shop and a cobblers.Greg Wright, 'Transformation for the "dustbin of Leeds" ', Yorkshire Post (11 August 2009). It has been seen as a major example of inter-war social housing.

However, by the 1960s–70s, the development had deteriorated. While in the 1960s it was still intended as a hostel only for workers,Kester Aspden, The Hounding of David Oluwale (London: Vintage, 2007) p. 80. it served increasingly as a homeless shelter for the unemployed and long-term homeless, and allegedly even became known as the 'dustbin'.Katie Barker, 'Energy independence for Leeds housing scheme', Construction News (2 April 2014).Ben Marlow, 'Green dream rises from the "dustbin of Leeds" ', The Sunday Times (London) (20 September 2009), 11. It was noted among Leeds's black population for the racism of its staff and inhabitants.Ian Law, Racism, Ethnicity, and Social Policy (Prentice Hall, 1996), p. 142.Fiona Spiers, Housing and Social Exclusion (London: Jessica Kingsley, 1999), p. 151. It was finally closed and boarded up in November 1998.Greg Wright, 'Transformation for the "dustbin of Leeds" ', Yorkshire Post (11 August 2009).

Redevelopment

The small Leeds developer Citu conceived a redevelopment of Shaftesbury Hourse in 2005. The developers' ethos for the building included a holistically conceived architecture and engineering system that focused on ecological and social sustainability and that promoted small, creative business and urban regeneration.Greg Wright, 'Transformation for the "dustbin of Leeds" ', Yorkshire Post (11 August 2009). The developers cited influence from Japanese design.Gwenda Brophy, 'We're turning Japanese', The Independent (London) (3 February 2010), 50. Their emphasis, in line with ecomodernism, was on enabling more sustainable life without expecting residents consciously to make sacrifices.'Developer homes in on eco-scheme', The Express (28 September 2007), 72.'Housing plan's Greenhouse effect', Yorkshire Post (27 December 2007).'Leeds 'unique' green flats', Yorkshire Evening Post (23 September 2010).

Citu completed the purchase of the building in 2008, with finance coming prominently from the Co-operative Bank.'Housing plan's Greenhouse effect', Yorkshire Post (27 December 2007). The development was co-ordinated with Leeds City Council as part of the regeneration of the Holbeck/Beeston area of Leeds,Greg Wright, 'Transformation for the "dustbin of Leeds" ', Yorkshire Post (11 August 2009). though local residents were not uniformly enthusiastic about the development, and investors were nervous at its down-at-heel location.Sharon Dale, 'Green scheme stays true to its vision and survives the recession', Yorkshire Post (2 October 2010), 2.

Work on-site began in December 2008.Craig Bolton, 'Greenhouse, Leeds by West and Machell Architects', Architects Journal (25 March 2011). The ground floor of Shaftesbury House was turned into car parking and plant rooms, and the cruciform inner wings demolished to create a single large courtyard. To achieve this, a JCB was craned into the existing courtyards, and some use was made of remote-controlled robots. The remaining fabric became an outer ring, entirely residential, while a new inner ring was built, with business space on the lower floors and residential space on the upper. Two entirely new floors were added on top of these. This took the size of the building from 80,000 to nearly 140,000 square feet.Greg Wright, 'Transformation for the "dustbin of Leeds" ', Yorkshire Post (11 August 2009). The framework and roof were completed during August 2009,Greg Wright, 'Transformation for the "dustbin of Leeds" ', Yorkshire Post (11 August 2009). and the building was finished in April 2010, at which time it had 172 one, two and three-bedroom eco-apartments, and about 15,000 square feet of office space.Craig Bolton, 'Greenhouse, Leeds by West and Machell Architects', Architects Journal (25 March 2011).Greg Wright, 'Transformation for the "dustbin of Leeds" ', Yorkshire Post (11 August 2009). The building was officially opened by Hilary Benn MP on 1 October 2010.'The messy part'.Sharon Dale, 'Green scheme stays true to its vision and survives the recession', Yorkshire Post (2 October 2010), 2.

Units went on sale, off plan, in April 2007,Huma Qureshi and Lisa Bachelor, 'Giving something back', The Observer (London) (15 April 2007), 13. many people buying the flats as investments, with 130 being sold within a week.'It's the green, green look of homes of the future', Yorkshire Evening Post (19 September 2007).'Developer homes in on eco-scheme', The Express (28 September 2007), 72.'Housing plan's Greenhouse effect', Yorkshire Post (27 December 2007). However, the redevelopment took place against the backdrop of the Great Recession, with Greenhouse being one of few large developments to be completed in Leeds after the housing market crashed.Claire Carponen, 'From dustbin to low-carbon hub', The Times (London) (11 February 2011), 8-9. Not all original buyers followed through with their purchases, but most did,Sharon Dale, 'Green scheme stays true to its vision and survives the recession', Yorkshire Post (2 October 2010), 2. and 75% of homes had been sold by early 2011, which was reported as a significant achievement.'Northern delight: green not grim', Estates Gazette (8 January 2011). But Citu temporarily diversified their use of unsold units to include a conference suite called Greenspace and an aparthotel business.

The developers expressly resisted what their director Chris Thompson called the "build it and leg it" model of development,'Chris Thompson: "architects have the largest ability to add value" ', Architects Journal (8 October 2012). and as of 2018 were still headquartered in the building, while the building's concierge, Jimmy, was recruited from among the builders who worked on the redevelopment. Commentators noted that, since sustainability plant took up 10% of the building's space, the developers had foregone some easy profits.Sharon Dale, 'Green scheme stays true to its vision and survives the recession', Yorkshire Post (2 October 2010), 2. Citu continued to manage the building until selling the freehold to Ground Rent Income Fund and handing over management to Braemar Estates in 2013.Emily Perryman, 'Braemar Estates secures two new appointments in Yorkshire', Property Funds World (13 August 2013).

Sustainability features

The building has been ranked at Code for Sustainable Homes level 4 (out of 6);Craig Bolton, 'Greenhouse, Leeds by West and Machell Architects', Architects Journal (25 March 2011). at the time this meant that it more than doubled the number of such units in the UK.Ben Marlow, 'Green dream rises from the "dustbin of Leeds" ', The Sunday Times (London) (20 September 2009), 11. A key aspect of its sustainability is that it involved renovating an existing structure.Rachael Unsworth, 'The Future of City Living: How a Post-Industrial Area could become a Sustainable Neighbourhood for the Long Term', Built Environment, 41 (2015), 325-41 (p. 330) . The following features were, at the time of the building's design, presented as innovative sustainability features.

Insulation, heating, and cooling

The building was built or, in the case of older parts, clad with high-performance insulation. According to the architects, the building achieved an airtight building envelope with the following U-values:Craig Bolton, 'Greenhouse, Leeds by West and Machell Architects', Architects Journal (25 March 2011). +part of buildingdesigned U-value (W/m2K)walls0.15windows1.32floor0.15roof0.10

Energy for heating was designed to come from solar water heating through 44 roof-mounted panels,Sharon Dale, 'Green scheme stays true to its vision and survives the recession', Yorkshire Post (2 October 2010), 2. then among the largest such schemes in the UK,Greg Wright, 'Transformation for the "dustbin of Leeds" ', Yorkshire Post (11 August 2009). and ground source heating via two eighty-metre boreholes enabling heat to be condensed from a natural reservoire beneath the building.Craig Bolton, 'Greenhouse, Leeds by West and Machell Architects', Architects Journal (25 March 2011). An electric immersion-heating system was installed as a back-up.

Heating and cooling of rooms is achieved through a shared system based on heat exchange, integrated into the water heating and cooling system, and delivered via air-conditioning (meaning that units contain no boilers or radiators). Instead of being expelled into the atmosphere, waste heat from warm parts of the building (such as busy offices) can, for example, be transferred to cool parts of the building (such as north-facing residences), or used to warm water.Sharon Dale, 'Green scheme stays true to its vision and survives the recession', Yorkshire Post (2 October 2010), 2.

Electricity generation and conservation

The building has two wind turbines contributing electricity to communal lighting and lifts.Craig Bolton, 'Greenhouse, Leeds by West and Machell Architects', Architects Journal (25 March 2011). Corridor lighting is controlled by sensors.

Water consumption

Taps aerate water, to reduce consumption by 25%.Elizabeth Colman, 'Big green brother is watching you', The Sunday Times (London) (14 November 2010), p. 6.