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Sheffield Architecture Tours

Architecture Guides in South Yorkshire – Northern England Building Walks

post updated 31 July 2024

Contact e-architect for your South Yorkshire walking guide: isabelle(at)e-architect.com

Sheffield Architecture – Introduction

The city is located in South Yorkshire, in the north of England, on the River Sheaf. The population of Sheffield is around 1/2 million and it nicknamed ‘Steel City’ after the major industrial legacy of steel production in the Don Valley area.

Brutalist Béton House Sheffield, Park Hill, renewal design by Whittam Cox Architects:

image courtesy of architects office

The city’s most acclaimed piece of architecture is the Park Hill Housing, sitting on a small hill just East of the city centre. It was highly influential on completion in 1961, and in 1998 was given Grade II* listed building status. However its Brutalist style and notorious deck access to flats became vilified in the 1970s and 1980s. The large residential complex has now been refurbished by Northern English developers Urban Splash using a variety of architects practices.

Also worth visiting are the Winter Gardens building, the Crucible Theatre building, St Paul’s Place and the former National Museum of Pop Music.

Winter Gardens Building:

photo © Adrian Welch

Sheffield Architecture Walking Tours

Famous architects with buildings in Sheffield include Mecanoo Architects, Sauerbruch Hutton and O’Donnell + Tuomey Architects. Other key architects with work in the city include Allies and Morrison, Project Orange, RHWL Architects, DSDHA, Sheppard Robson, RMJM, Cartwright Pickard Architects, Hawkins & Brown Architects, Purcell Miller Tritton Architects, PRS architects, John McAslan & Partners, Stephen Hodder Architects, Nigel Coates Architects, Studio Egret West, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, BDP, Bond Bryan Architects and DRDH Architects.

Jessop West:

photo © Adrian Welch

Sheffield Walking Tours

Sheffield Architecture Tours can focus on old or new buildings or both. The Sheffield Architecture Tour can be an introduction to the city’s main buildings or it could be structured around your group’s architectural interests.

The Diamond Building at The University of Sheffield design by Twelve Architects:

photograph : Jack Hobhouse

e-architect can provide assistance with preparing an itinerary for your walking tour. A visiting group interested in, for example, South Yorkshire office buildings or office buildings could be provided with information allowing a walking tour programme to be formed ahead of their visit.

St Paul’s Place – Car park building:

photo : Dennis Gilbert

Visitors can be met from Sheffield airport, their accommodation, or more usually at the starting point of their walking tour.

Sheffield Architecture : key buildings in the city

photo © webbaviation

Sheffield Architectural Walking Tours

Payments must be made in full prior to your South Yorkshire architectural tour.

Park Hill – Housing

photo © webbaviation

Park Hill housing estate was built between 1957 and 1961. The buildings were renovated by developers Urban Splash into a mostly private mixed-tenure estate made up of homes for market rent, private sale, shared ownership, and student housing. Around a quarter of the units in the development are now set as social housing.

The renovation was one of the six shortlisted projects for the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize. Following the Second World War it was decided that a radical scheme needed to be introduced to deal with rehousing the Park Hill community.

British architects Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith, under the supervision of J. L. Womersley (Sheffield Council’s City Architect), began work in 1953 designing the Park Hill Flats. Inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation and The Smithsons’ architectural designs in London (notably for Golden Lane), the deck access design was viewed as ‘revolutionary’. However, secluded walkways and stairwells provided opportunity for crime and anti-social behaviour. Also, the high balconies allowed residents to throw refuse and other items over, creating danger below.

Architects involved in the redevelopment are Studio Egret West, Hawkins Brown and Grant Associates, Mikhail Riches, Whitham Cox, and Carmody Groarke. These are all British architecture practices, mostly design-led but none of them are what could be called large design practices, like say Foster + Partners or Aedas.

Sheffield Building Photos

Why not combine your visit to the steel city with a trip to Leeds, located just a handful of miles to the North?

Recent major pieces of architecture worth seeing include these:

Maggie’s Yorkshire building design by Heatherwick Studio:

photo © Hufton and Crow
Maggie’s Yorkshire Centre Building

Leeds Footbridge design by Gagarin Studio with DP Squared:

photo © Andrew Wall
Leeds Footbridge

Architecture Tours

e-architect organise British architecture walking tours in other cities such as Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London. We also have walking tour guides outside Britain in cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen and Paris. Contact us today for your architectural walking tour.

Architecture Walking Tours

Location: Sheffield, South Yorkshire, Northern England, UK

Sheffield Architecture Photos