Hull Fruit Market winner announced

• Increase image
• View all images

A team including Surface, Sarah Wigglesworth and Bauman Lyons has won the high-profile competition to transform Hull's historic Fruit Market site.

 

The impressive line-up, which also features urban designer Jan Gehl and Grimsby-based practice Hodson Architects, saw off three other developer-led bids to land the prize job in the Old Town conservation area.

Brought together by developer Igloo, the architects were asked to draw up plans for a new 'vibrant community' on the rundown 6.75ha waterfront plot, currently home to a mishmash of abandoned Georgian, Victorian and 20th century brick buildings.

Regeneration company and majority landowner Hull Citybuild wants to create 400 new homes, restaurants, hotels, shops and 10,000m2 of offices across the prime site between the Rivers Hull and Humber and next to the marina.

Among the teams that lost out on the project were developer bids from the Gladedale Group (Reland) with DLG Architects and a consortium headed up by Quintain and Chetwood Associates.

Igloo's chief executive Chris Brown believes it was the mix of talent which clinched the victory for his team.

He said: 'We don't believe a single architect can design an entire neighbourhood or create a place which appears to have developed over time.

'We have very carefully selected a combination of the very best – the London brilliance – twinned with people who have intimate understanding of the city.'

For Igloo, the Fruit Market is actually one of their smallest schemes and, Brown admits, will not be completed over night.

He said: 'This is going to be quite a long-term process, especially with the land-assembly programme which Hull Citybuild will have to go through, possibly including some CPOs.'

Work on site could start before the end of the year, but the full development programme is expected to take at least five years.