The Holmes Miller designed York Community Stadium is to open in time for Christmas. This unique public / privately funded project represents the end of an 18-year journey for the City Council to deliver a new Stadium for the city. Holmes Miller have been part of this journey from the beginning. The complex includes a new 8,500 all-seater Stadium for York City FC and York City Knights RLFC, extensive leisure facilities and a Community Hub.

MIXED USE

The leisure complex provides a 25-metre swimming pool with a separate teaching pool and fun pool. The complex also includes a sports hall with spectator viewing, a fitness gym, studios, extreme adventure sports zone and 3G pitches. The commercial leisure element provides a 13-screen cinema (with IMAX), tenpin bowling, indoor golf and restaurants.

The site was the location of Huntington Stadium and Waterworld leisure complex. Both these facilities were expensive to maintain and early design studies confirmed there were no practical opportunities to repurpose. An early decision was taken to relocate the existing road that bisected the site. As a result, the main Stadium site is car free, pedestrian and cycle friendly, with all vehicles kept to the periphery of the site.

BUILDING FORM

A key architectural aim was to develop a unified building type. External materials have been carefully considered, to allow the various building uses to sit comfortably within the wider masterplan, whilst highlighting it as an important civic and community facility. A restricted palette of high-quality materials has been chosen, that provide articulation, interest and depth to the large span elevations surrounding the Stadium. Key to the design approach for the elevations is the clear distinction of three different elevations treatments based on building use, function, and location.

The urban spaces including cinema, Hub, community facilities, and front of Leisure Centre. Quality cladding and glazing in direct dialogue with the adjacent Vangarde Shopping complex.

The Stadium with clearly identified entry points, views into concourse areas and out into adjacent green spaces.
The north and east elevations of the Leisure Centre are of a more modest nature as they provide access to most plant and service areas of the scheme.

STADIUM

A key design feature of the Stadium is the covered FanZone at the southeast entrance to the Stadium. The intention of the FanZone is to encourage fans to come early and enjoy the pre-match atmosphere. For the hospitality and corporate guests, there is a variety of hospitality spaces for over 600 spectators. Key to the success of the Stadium will be ensuring long-term financial sustainability, and to this end, the NHS Trust will utilise the Stadium hospitality facilities out with match time as an NHS Trust Conferencing facility. Thus, ensuring that no internal space remains empty, idle, and underutilised.

INCLUSIVE DESIGN

The Council’s aspiration was for the complex to be fully inclusive. They were keen to develop a Healthy Stadia’ concept which uses the power of sport to tackle health inequalities by using the community Stadium as a tool to promote the health of visitors, fans, players, employees and the surrounding community. The community Stadium facility becomes a place where people can go to have a positive, healthy experience, playing or watching sport.

COMMUNITY HUB

The Community Hub which sits at the heart of the complex provides facilities for York NHS Trust, York Against Cancer, York Libraries and York City FC and York City Knights RLFC community facilities. An important driver for the Community Hub was to attract and cater for all ages and abilities and at the same time promoting physical, mental, and social wellbeing through a building that is socially inclusive. The introduction of the NHS facility and the library within the Hub will hopefully increase the diversity of users.

The Hub is located at the ‘knuckle’ between the leisure centre and Stadium/community areas with a bright and airy double height space linking the two and is accessed via the landscaped plaza to the east. The Hub provides a focal point upon arrival. The visual connectivity in the Hub enables instant orientation of the building upon entry. Movement and activity within the complex are a key theme and the busy Hub provides building users with this experience.

BENEFITS

There are many benefits in bringing together facilities and services that are intrinsically linked in a Community Stadium, benefiting both service providers and customers. Combining multiple uses within the Stadium brings energy consumption and carbon reduction benefits, in both construction and life cycle use, as well shared resources, and will also bring social, mental, and physical wellbeing benefits through bringing people and activities together. Never have so many facilities ever been assembled under one roof. Holmes Miller belief York Community Stadium offers a vision for how a mixed-use community sport and leisure scheme can become the catalyst for the regeneration of towns.

From a sporting perspective Holmes Miller hope the Stadium becomes a ‘fortress’ for football and rugby and encourages both teams to more success. From a wider perspective we hope the City’s aspirations are met in terms of community use. Architecturally we hope the built environment inspires future generations to be involved in sport and leisure.

Visit www.holmesmiller.com/work for more information on our sport & leisure projects and sector experience.

York Community Stadium open in time for Christmas