Emmaus Community, Leeds

• client: Emmaus (Leeds)
• value: £900,000
• completion: December 2003

Refurbishment of a former school in the centre of Leeds into an Emmaus Community. Emmaus offers a combination of things which many homeless people need: a home, work and the choice of a new life. The existing school had two significant interventions, a new floor of bedrooms and a new entrance extension.

The Emmaus concept is an extraordinary exemplar of a sustainable way of life, and the architecture responds to this. This scheme is economic, logical and addresses the issues of spiritual needs relating to identity, privacy and a sense of worth.