Young People’s Space, Leeds

2025 RIBA Yorkshire Award
2025 RIBA Small Project of the Year
2025 RIBA Client of the Year sponsored by Equitone

Health
ArkleBoyce for St. Gemma’s Hospice
Contract value: £285,000
​GIA: 45m²
Cost per m²: £6,333

The Young People’s Space at St Gemma’s Hospice is a beautifully conceived timber pavilion, set within the grounds of the hospice’s gardens in Moortown, Leeds. This modest little gem provides ‘home from home’ accommodation and support spaces for children and young people who have been affected by serious illness or the death of a family member.

The pavilion is arranged around a central social space which opens out to the garden to the south, with a quiet counselling room sited to the north. These spaces are brought together under a unifying grid mesh roof structure which references the tree canopies within the garden and the St Gemma’s logo. The timber structure sits well within the context of the setting, and forms a harmonious and positive contribution to the garden.

The architects worked collaboratively with St Gemma’s staff as well as a small group of young people through a careful piece of co-design. A series of conversations and workshops informed the initial conceptual thinking. This is beautifully conveyed through architectural drawings and visualisations – all sensitively worked through, accessible and visually friendly, quite literally illustrating the care and thought given to the project.

The ambitious and motivated clients saw the building’s strong environmental credentials as an endorsement of the hospice’s overall commitment to sustainability. The pavilion uses simple passive strategies to maintain comfortable temperatures throughout, and extensively employs sustainably sourced timber. 

Constructed of glulam and prefabricated timber structural insulation panels, it is clad in larch certified by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The result is a commendable embodied carbon figure, particularly in accounting for the sequestration of carbon in timber.

St Gemma’s Hospice has been offering pre- and post-bereavement support for over a decade, so to now have a dedicated child-centred environment to help young people navigate grief is a wonderful achievement. When a design team and their client collaborate effectively, the results can be transformative as they are at St Gemma’s. 

The success of this project not only provides comfort and emotional support to the patients and their families, but also serves as an invaluable model for future developments in palliative care settings.

View all of our Yorkshire winners here, and all our RIBA UK Award winners here.

View the full RIBA UK Awards 2025 process.

RIBA Regional Awards 2025 sponsored by Autodesk, EH Smith, Equitone and VELUX