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Your guide to talking climate change over the winter holidays

Christmas is a time for getting the whole family together, cracking open the sherry before noon, and having endless debates at the dinner table. But this year, rather than arguing the merits of whether or not Christmas pudding should be served with brandy butter or custard, why not talk about someth…

Is your home as smart as this?

We design every aspect of the Citu Home to help reduce your carbon footprint without making you compromise. From the materials it’s built from, to how it’s put together, it all helps you drastically cut your emissions whilst staying nice and warm in winter.

By building in the latest smart home tech…

See the first homes built in Leeds city centre for 90 years

Living in the city centre means you're just a short walk or cycle from where you work. You’re no longer reliant on a car that gets you stuck in traffic every day. You’re able to meet friends after work and wander home whenever you like. Freed from a gruelling daily commute you’re able to spend more …

Kelham Island: the greatest neighbourhood in the UK

Last night at the Academy of Urbanism Awards Kelham Island won the award for being the greatest neighbourhood in the UK.

Beating some incredible areas like Ancoats and Hackney Wick to the title is no mean feat. It’s a testament to all the hard work of community groups, like Kelham Island Community …

Why a Citu Home is a healthy home

For all of you Grand Designs fans out there, you may have seen the healthy home featured in last week’s episode, which used an air-tight membrane and MVHR system to create a house that has drastically better air quality than a typical home.

It used a lot of the same principles we use, to create ho…

Celebrating Kelham Island in Eagle Works

Restoring a two-hundred-year-old building to be at the cutting edge of sustainability isn’t easy. We partnered with Historic England to retain all of Eagle Works’ amazing heritage features, like original timber beams, wrought iron columns and vaulted ceilings. But the tricky part was bringing it bac…

Little Kelham: a place for making

Kelham Island was created when the Goit was built to power water wheels for the area’s Mills in Kelham’s industrial past.

It became a centre of steel making, helping to create the modern world. The steelmaking has long since moved away. But Kelham Island is now a crucible for ideas, rather than ho…

All the gear and one big idea

We build our houses to be over 10 times more airtight than building regulation require, for one simple reason: it means they require several times less heating than a traditionally built home.

Why is that? Well, airtightness is the most crucial ingredient for retaining heat. Imagine building a hous…

What is the most effective way of reducing my carbon footprint?

Climate change is real – that’s not up for debate. It’s a fact. The world is warming, and it’s because of human emissions of greenhouse gases. 

When you know climate change is real, you’ve got a responsibility to act, and that means reducing your carbon footprint.

There are all kinds of actions yo…

Opera on Location in Eagle Works

We partnered with Historic England to restore the former Steel Mills at Little Kelham, which are some incredible examples of Sheffield heritage.

Eagle Works is the largest of these Mills, and now it's finished we are using it to let Opera on Location bring something special to Kelham Island. 

Mozart…

#KurbArt – have you walked the wall yet?

200 meters of wall. 5 local artists. 13 new pieces of art.

That’s KurbArt. From huge murals to compilations of hand-painted tiles, there are all kinds of incredible art to see in Kelham Island’s urban art gallery.

Take a stroll down Green Lane, from the Stew and Oyster to the Grind Café, and you c…

Look around the Climate Innovation District in 3D

The Climate Innovation District is unique. Houses in the city centre, surrounded by green space looking out across a Riverbank that's peppered with trees. 

It's the convenience of living in the city, but surrounded by nature. 

As you can probably tell, we're so excited to create this amazing place…

Join us at Leeds Waterfront festival

This weekend the Citu Team will be at the Waterfront Festival.

We’ll be there doing what we do best; answering your questions about the Climate Innovation District, handing you a glass of prosecco and a free tote bag, and most importantly of all, winning the dragon boat race.

So if you’re interest…

Learning from the best

We’ve hired Steve Savage, former Manufacturing Manager at BMW UK to head up operations here at Citu.

You might think that’s a bit odd for a company that builds houses. But for us, it makes perfect sense. 

It’s all about building precision engineered components that create faultless products.

You …

Have I got Mews for you

You’ve probably realised by now that we’re not as funny as we think we are.

But that’s okay, because we never set out to be funny. We set out to tackle climate change, and we make sure that every place we build does exactly that.

If you want to live somewhere that radically reduces your carbon foo…

Climate Innovation District Wins Innovation Award

We didn't call it the Climate Innovation District just because we thought it sounded cool.

Okay, we admit it, it was partly because we thought it sounded cool. And because we'd been watching too much Luther and really wanted to sound like plainclothes detectives by using the acronym CID around the …

The mind behind KurbArt

When we wanted to create something amazing on the huge heritage wall running along Green Lane on the Southern edge of Little Kelham, we turned to the Kelham Island Arts Collective (KIAC). 

Five different artists from KIAC created amazing pieces of art for the project - but John Wilkinson saw the wh…

Making historic places future proof

At Citu we’re all about using cutting edge tech to be as sustainable as possible. 

That means using the best insulation technology, thermal envelopes, MVHR systems and advanced building modelling to make sure everything is ultra-efficient and can run on 100% renewable energy.

That works fine when …

Talking to the creators of KurbArt

If you’ve been walking through Kelham Island recently, chances are you’ve seen some rather interesting artworks being installed on the 400 meter stretch of wall that forms the Southern Boundary of Little Kelham.  

It’s the Kelham Island Urban Art Gallery, or KurbArt for short. It’s all thanks to KI…

The first houses to be built in Leeds City Centre for 90 years

Once upon a time, people lived in walking distance from where they worked. But then cars came along, and we all decamped to the suburbs.

Seemed like a good idea at the time, but now we’ve got roads clogged with traffic, hours wasted every day stuck on in lines of vehicles, and thousands of deaths f…

Tackling climate change one home at a time

Passionate is one of those words that’s been used to death.

Your accountant will tell you they’re passionate about tax optimisation.

Your supermarket will tell you they’re passionate about low prices.

Your CV says you’re passionate about implementing growth oriented business solutions.   

So, it…

An event so cool it's in an igloo

On Thursday 22^nd March between 12pm – 8pm we’re opening our doors and letting you into Citu Works to see the Citu Home being made.

And then, we'll take you into the Citu Home through our virtual reality experience to see that sustainability and great design go hand in hand.

It'll all happen in an …

What’s an MVHR system and how does it work?

We realise that you might not have heard of a Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery system (MVHR) before, so we thought it would be a good idea to write a blog on what it is, how it works, and why we use them in a Citu Home.

Let’s start with the why

Our goal as an organisation is to tackle clim…

Signed, sealed, delivered

When you build something ground-breaking, you need trailblazers. People who buy into your vision. Because no matter how ‘green’ you make a place, if no one wants to live there then it’s not sustainable.

For that, we’ve got to thank our incredible customers. The people who care so strongly about red…

What makes us tick

To create amazing places that tackle climate change, you need to have amazing people who are passionate about making a difference.

Here at Citu we're all motivated by our goal; accelerating the transition to zero carbon cities. 

But that's not the only thing that gets us excited. Everyone has the…

How to build a sustainable house

Sustainability has a whole host of different meanings. Sometimes it can seem really complicated. But what it's really about is leaving a world to our children that we haven’t degraded.

Anything you can do to make your lifestyle more sustainable is a positive step. We choose to focus on houses becau…

Our year

Our review of the year

Saying 2017 has been a busy year for us at Citu is a bit of understatement. We’ve had big milestones reached or new major achievements pretty much every month of the year.

We thought we break down some of the biggest changes for you so you can see how far we’ve come on our j…

Watch: The Launch of the Climate Innovation District

The Climate Innovation District is historic. 

The first houses to be built in Leeds city centre in 90 years, and the biggest urban sustainable development in the UK. 

It isn't like any other development anywhere else in the country. So to launch the district we didn't do what you'd do when launchi…

How to prevent the emission of half a trillion tonnes of CO2

The Citu Home and the Climate Innovation District that it will be part of have been designed from the outset to massively reduce CO2 emissions, both during construction and over its life time.

The Launch of the Citu Home and Climate Innovation District

Last week we hosted an exclusive launch event at the Everyman Cinema for people interested in our new Citu Home and Climate Innovation District. We’d like to thank everyone who came. The cinema was packed, and it was incredible to see so many people interested in the Climate Innovation District.

If…

What makes Kelham Island so special?

Kelham was once an industrial area, but is now one of the most desirable places in the UK, having been named as one of the top ten coolest places in Britain. It has fostered a creative and close community, with regular events that bring everyone together.

Everywhere wants to have a great community…

Accelerate - The week's round up of climate change innovation 03/11

Climate news can be a mix of scary and depressing. The Guardian reported today that the world is on course of 3 degrees of warming if we don’t do more to reduce our carbon emissions, and this will lead to 2-meter sea level rises that will inundate major coastal cities around the world. It’s importan…

Accelerate- The week's round-up of climate change innovation 27/10

This week saw more exciting news on the rapidly falling price of renewables, which will continue to become cheaper over the coming years, according to a report from the International Energy Agency.

Global prices per Megawatt hour have already halved for solar power in the last four years, and the I…

Accelerate- The week's round-up of climate change innovation 19/10

This week a major international study was published which showed natural solutions such as tree planting can play a massive role in mitigating climate change.

It’s not a silver bullet, but planting trees, protecting peatlands and managing soils could account for 37% of the required reduction in gre…

Launching the Home of the Future

Last night, Citu Works, our manufacturing facility & headquarters at the Climate Innovation District site won best innovation at the Yorkshire Residential Property Awards.

We’re ecstatic that a key part of the Climate Innovation District has been recognised as being so innovative.   

But it’s …

Creating sustainable jobs in Leeds

As you might have noticed if you ever frequent our careers page, we’re recruiting!

Over the next year we are going to be creating over 100 jobs as we push ahead with building the Climate Innovation District, the biggest and most exciting urban sustainable development in the UK.  

This is big for u…

What does it take to create a zero carbon neighbourhood?

We exist to accelerate the transition to zero carbon cities. Creating zero carbon neighbourhoods isn't straightforward, especially when you aren't willing to compromise on making it an absolutely amazing place to live. But we think it is crucial to ensure that the design means people want to live th…

Accelerate- The week's round-up of climate change innovation 29/07

This week saw a number of exciting new announcements and major milestones in the drive to tackle climate change.

Rejuvenating the Riverside at the Climate Innovation District

The River Aire cuts a path through the centre of Leeds, and in doing so forms a key part of our urban landscape. From swanky Calls Landing to the chic Royal Armouries museum and Leeds Dock, the riverside is an attractive environment that hosts many of our cities greatest attractions. 

But continue …

Accelerate - The week's round up of climate change innovation (1)

The Accelerate briefing is our weekly round-up of news that shows we can tackle climate change.

Our vision for the design of the climate innovation district

We don’t want to build ‘eco-houses’ that are great for the environment, but aren’t amazing places to live. It doesn’t matter how green you make it, if no one wants to live there, then it’s not sustainable.

Meet the Plumber

At Citu, we don't accept things the way they are.

We make them better. 

That means finding better ways of building houses. Better for the people buying them, and better for the people building them. 

We call it the Citu Squad. It means you'll be work in a tight-knit team that all pulls together a…

Accelerate – The week’s round up of climate change innovation.

Climate change is a huge global problem. We’re trying to do our part by changing the way houses are built to make them far more efficient and sustainable. But we’re not going to solve it alone, far from it.

Too often with climate change the enormity of the problem makes us feel powerless. This leav…

It's all KICA-ing off at Kelham Island

You may not have heard of KICA. KICA is the Kelham Island Community Alliance. It’s been going for ages now, but over the past couple of years it’s kicked it up a notch (pun very much intended) and had a massive positive impact on the Kelham Island Community.

KICA are getting Kelham Islands out of t…

Why build homes from timber?

Our mission is to accelerate the transition to zero carbon cities. We always knew it was going to be a big challenge, and that to do it we couldn’t use the same old construction techniques which haven’t been improved on for decades.

So we did the smartest thing you can do when faced with an enormou…

Petrol & diesel obsolete by 2040? How about 2020.

You probably heard recently that the government will be banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2040 onwards. Our goal is to accelerate the transition to zero carbon cities, so we were happy that the government decided to set a date where the internal combustion engine will be a thing of…

Your chance to live in the Wedge at Little Kelham

Fancy living in the centre of Sheffield whilst helping tackle climate change? We’ve got just the thing! Funny that.

The Wedge is an exciting mix of houses and flats, whose iconic shape means every home is a different size, so there are two and three bedroom homes available to match your budget.
Situ…

Climate Innovation District wins housing design awards 2017

We're thrilled to announce that our Climate Innovation District phase 2 just won the 2017 Housing Design Awards! These awards have been running since 1948 and really are the Oscars for housing design fanatics like us. Normally it's London developments that take the top spots, but this year we manage…

Why we’re happy to be a part of the South Bank renaissance in Leeds

A short video of our time at Leeds Waterfront Festival

The Leeds Waterfront Festival was perhaps the best demonstration of what makes the South Bank of Leeds so vibrant. 

We were also there talking about the Climate Innovation District, which will be one of the biggest new additions to a part of…

Citu at Leeds Waterfront Festival

We've created a video to help you find us over the weekend

To help you find your way to the Citu locations across the waterfront, we've created this quick video with the Waterfront Festival organiser, Sue Jennings and Citu's Head of Digital & Marketing, Kevin Gillespie.

What we're doing at t…

Leeds artist to bring the Climate Innovation District to life

Keeping it local

We’ve teamed up with a local street artist to bring an alternative interpretation of the work we’re carrying out at the Climate Innovation District.

Bringing his unique style of slogans and graphics to the Climate Innovation District, Hyro Graff will create two dramatic billboards…

We're getting Eagle Works making again in Little Kelham

The future of Eagle Works in the Making 

We’re in the process of finalising a plan for the ground floor of Eagle Works and we’re looking forward to sharing our vision with everyone soon.

The upper floors of Eagle Works will be home to a variety of businesses, with light and airy dual aspect worksp…