Soho Yard, West Bar, Sheffield
Soho Yard and the adjacent Soho Gardens form a new high quality landscaped space between two residential buildings that together will provide 368 apartments.

In 2016 we were commissioned to submit an outline application for the West Bar Masterplan, Sheffield. At the heart of the West Bar neighbourhood is a mixed use masterplan comprising of Residential, Office, Commercial and Car Parking uses located to the North of Sheffield City Centre. After successfully being awarded outline planning consent our client Urbo secured Legal & General as funding partner for a build to rent residential development and subsequently we have been commissioned to develop and submit a reserved matters application.

The design principles as set out within the masterplan were to develop 2no. residential buildings which form a new public square, Soho Yard, at the heart of the development. The proposed development provides 368 city centre homes comprising of a mix of studio, 1 Bed, 2Bed and 3 Bed Apartments across two buildings. Apartment layouts have been developed to provide considered, desirable and long term city centre homes. The buildings will also offer an impressive range of amenity spaces including roof terraces, gym, lounge and private dining areas exclusively for residents use.

The massing of the buildings has been developed to create a key landmark building, at Ground +18 storeys, to the north of the masterplan anchoring the development in the wider context of the city and surrounding landscape. The buildings are articulated to allow maximum daylight within residential accommodation, south facing public realm and roof terraces along with unlocking key access routes across the site and wider masterplan. Conceptually the building envelopes have been developed to offer a subtle yet sensitive reference to the surrounding peak district landscape and industrial history of the city, with specific consideration to the texture and tone of the material palette.

The scheme offers a landmark development that responds to the context, site constraints, opportunities and spirit of the wider masterplan.

A key principle of re-development has been the requirement to tackle climate change, in particularly Environment Agency flood requirements with respect to site levels and existing structures. Design work has focussed on the recycling of demolition material to create the new site profile as part of the new sub-base and formation levels for the new buildings. A SUDS drainage and landscape strategy has also been adopted that extends the existing “grey to green” public realm from West Bar through the site through a series of raingardens and landscape  attenuation features so the site acts as a better neighbour to existing adjacent sites.

All new buildings, including the initial BTR and No. 1 West Bar Square planning applications, will be low energy and low carbon in operation. The Build to Rent Buildings adopt a similar approach to the office with increased insulation and improved fabric performance to Part L, improved air leakage and the incorporation of MVHR to each home with heat recovery – following some of the principles of Passivhaus. The residential buildings will achieve 4 star energy performance under the latest Home Quality Mark scheme, with PV used to provide green electricity. The buildings will utilise air to water heat pumps using R744 (CO2) as a refrigerant for hot water generation, which has an ozone depleting potential of 0 and global warming potential of 1.

The strategy of non-fossil fuel use, combined with a fabric first approach allows demand from the grid to be minimised and that demand to be met wholly through renewable tariffs and resulting in no local carbon emissions.

Developer website: westbar.co.uk