The inspiration behind ‘A Stitch in Time’ was a desire to preserve and accentuate existing features of the warehouses whilst weaving in a new dialogue and celebrate the next chapter. This design approach triggered the need to finesse the design brief to ensure it aligned with the proposed sympathetic building envelope.

At its infancy, the architectural form took shape from the sum of parts unique to the existing warehouses. The dilapidated brick and render facade to Inverness Street was retained, restored and repointed. The ‘Yorkshire Textile Mill’ signage was intentionally left untouched and the sliding barn doors immediately below were restored and modernized. The distinctive curved roof apex visible from Albion Street was sympathetically rebuilt and dictated the overall height and scale of the building.

Considered a ‘back of house’ interface on an otherwise very public frontage, the removal of the boundary wall along Albion Street facilitated the creation of an attractive and activated new streetscape with landscaping opportunities. Corrugated sheeting and recycled brickwork feature heavily throughout the development as a direct reference to the original warehouses.

Convinced the generous proportions of the site could accommodate over a dozen self-contained dwellings, a series of design exercises demonstrated to the client that reducing the yield to nine, double-storey homes would result in a more boutique, commercially viable proposition that avoided compromising the building envelope.