Wharfe Valley Place Garden Centre Ilkley West Yorkshire The redevelopment of the site delivers a high quality commercial proposal which is a contemporary and contextual architectural response that is distinctive yet sympathetic to its unique Green Belt, floodplain setting, just out side the Victorian town of Ilkley. Positioned strategically on the site, a new garden centre building, The Pavilion, supported by ancillary glasshouse elements and a Folly designed for Marie Curie, will transform this site into a high quality environment. While functional and contemporary, The Pavilion delivers a quality regeneration of the site which is not only more sustainable in terms of the use of space and reduced energy demand but also in terms of sustaining and prolonging the sites commercial benefits to the town.The location is a very appropriate site for a garden centre – in a countryside setting, below the southern banks of the River Wharfe and within the designated flood plain, adjacent to a significant arterial road, but just outside the main conurbation of Ilkley. The scheme takes architectural inspiration from key modernist buildings in terms of its low lying horizontal form and delicate separation from the landscape. The structure is capped with a deep overhanging roof structure which floats above the fabric and lightweight curtain walling. Timber cladding and louvres are used to blend the building into its natural environment. These precedents were powerful generators of a design strategy which allows for an over-arching roof to sail above a flexible internal space, with perimeter glass walling providing high levels of transparency to the surrounding landscape.