PROJECT REPORT: RESIDENTIAL RETROFIT & REFURBISHMENT 35
PARK HILL PHASE TWO SHEFFIELD
The embodiment of sustainable retrofit
Preserving the original structure and character of a notorious estate originally conceived as a ‘vertical garden city’ helped Mikhail Riches’ Stirling Prize-shortlisted redevelopment cut embodied carbon by 61%. Stephen Cousins reports
T
he Park Hill estate has been a landmark on the Sheffield skyline for over 60 years, and at the time of construction was a true vision of the future. This ‘vertical garden city’ for 3,000 residents had ‘streets in the sky’; raised access routes wide enough to accommodate milk floats, and direct access to shops and pubs on the ground floor.
Designed by architects Ivor Smith and
Jack Lynns, the interconnected tenement blocks were positively received by residents, but over time problems with poverty, crime, drug use and anti-social behaviour brought Park Hill into disrepute, and by the 1980s it had a reputation as one of Britain’s most notorious “sink estates.”
There were calls for it to be knocked
down, but in 1998 the buildings were saved from the bulldozers when English Heritage granted it a Grade II listing, making it the largest listed building in Europe. Property developer Urban Splash took over the estate, kicking off the regeneration with architect Hawkins\Brown’s ambitious reimagining of three ‘wings’ in Phase One, completed in January 2013. This replaced the original facades of brick panels and timber windows with brightly coloured anodised aluminium panels and large sections of glazing.
Fast forward to 2015 and the brief for
Phase Two, a U-shaped block at the centre of the development, called for a lighter touch approach that would preserve as
ADF SEPTEMBER 2024
much of the original building as possible, whilst prioritising energy efficiency. The competition-winning design, by Mikhail Riches, delivers 195 flats and 2,500 m2 of ground floor commercial space. Alim Saleh, project architect at Mikhail Riches tells ADF: “Hawkins\Brown completely stripped the structure back to the concrete frame, gutted everything and started again because that level of internet intervention was needed at that time to really change people’s perceptions of the estate. They did a really good job, but we had to be more sensitive in our approach, in terms of the listed structure and listed status, and from an environmental point of view, to try to keep some embodied carbon.” The retentionist approach, preserving the original brickwork infills and the majority of the concrete frame, resulted in big embodied carbon savings, while upgrades to the building fabric slashed operational carbon compared to the original building. But finding appropriate and resilient solutions raised complex challenges for the architects, who had to carve out spacious modern flats from a distinctly ungenerous layout, and adapt a structure plagued by tolerance issues and cold bridges.
Unusual lengths
The stark brutalist architecture of Park Hill has always divided opinion and Urban Splash went to great lengths to ensure its
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
TEST OF TIME
The building has largely stood the test of time and the only major demolition required was around entrances
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
