Sheffield City Centre Public Realm The Gold Route The journey from Sheffield Station to Devonshire Green via the Heart of the City 1 The Gold Route Sheffield’s ‘Gold Route’ is a series of spectacular spaces and streets, centred on the Heart of the City project, which has come to symbolise the city’s economic and cultural renaissance. It is a network that takes a visitor arriving at the station to the University of Sheffield Campus. These include Sheaf Square, Howard Street, Hallam Gardens and Hallam Square, the Millennium Galleries, Winter Garden, Millennium Square and then on through the Peace Gardens to Barkers Pool and the proposed new retail quarter. 8 9 Each space in the Gold Route has its own distinctive character and elements such as water features, lighting, and public art; but all the spaces belong to a family with common themes and materials – flowing water, highly crafted metal and Pennine sandstone, the fundamentals of Sheffield’s history and character planned in the City Centre Masterplan. This important axis links the two universities and was first identified in the 1994 City Centre Strategy. Much new development is taking place along its length and where it crosses Sheffield’s main shopping spine defines the ‘Heart of 3 the City’. 9 8 2 2 5 7 6 5 3 4 2 1 Contents: 1. Sheaf Square ............................ 4 2. Howard Street and Hallam Garden .................... 5 3. Millennium Galleries and Winter Garden .................... 7 4. Millennium Square ...................... 8 3 5. Peace Gardens .......................... 9 6. Tudor Square ............................11 7. Town Hall Square and Surrey Street ......................12 8. Barkers Pool ..............................13 9. Devonshire Green ......................15 Next Steps ....................................16 2 1 Appendix 1: Project Outlines ........16 3 Cascade Weirs 1. Sheaf Square Sheaf Square is the station gateway to Sheffield, and is set in the Sheaf Valley, close to the Cultural Industries Quarter, the new Digital Campus, Sheffield Bus Interchange and Sheffield Hallam University. Following a decision to invest £13 million in the refurbishment of the railway station, Sheffield City Council and Sheffield One appointed EDAW consultants and the Council’s Regeneration Projects Design Team (RPDT) to carry out a masterplan for development and public realm in the area surrounding the station, known as Sheaf Square, then dominated by a large traffic roundabout on the Inner Relief Road. The aim was to reconnect the station to the City Centre, make an impressive gateway space for visitors and ensure a clear and unobstructed pedestrian route. The Master Plan sets out an ambitious design that required the acquisition and demolition of several buildings, paving the way Sheaf Square at night for a ‘World Class’ gateway to the city and creating four new development sites for which proposals have been put forward. Sheaf Square route to City Centre Detailed design work was carried out by the City Council’s in- house Landscaping and Engineering design team and extended to include the pedestrianisation of Howard Street which would provide a clear and attractive route to the Heart of the City via Sheffield Hallam University and the Cultural Industries Quarter. Si Applied and Keiko Mukaide designed and collaborated in the development of the Cutting Edge’ sculpture, an 81 metre long blade of polished stainless steel and art glass. Jeremy Asquith assisted in the re-design of the Heart of the City street furniture so that it could be fabricated in stainless steel instead of the original cast bronze created by his father Brian Asquith. The Design Team also included lighting consultants Sutton Vane Associates, who designed the Station façade lighting and amenity lighting in the Square together with feature lighting on the Cutting Edge sculpture and Howard Street Rill. Many of the luminaires in the water features and street furniture incorporate low energy / long lifespan light emitting diodes, which also have Cascade lights and misters the added safety benefits of running on low voltages. All of the new pavements and walling are crafted in natural stone, the most common is the Crosland Hill Yorkstone used in highway paving and throughout the whole cascade water feature, designed by RPDT. Each of the 426 cascades run over carved weir stones that have been hand finished by Yorkshire Craftsmen from Johnsons Wellfield quarries of Huddersfield, 4 Cascade Fountain each carefully bedded and levelled by Vetter UK stonemasons to maintain water flow symmetry. The Cutting Edge sculpture, weighing approximately 80 tonnes is one of the largest stainless steel sculptures in the UK and was fabricated by Jordan Engineering using Sheffield steel. Water is pumped from a large plant room under the main water feature to the crest of the sculpture from where it flows over a very accurately levelled weir and down the polished face of the sculpture. As well as creating an attractive shimmering effect the filtered and sterilised water has the added advantage of keeping one face of the sculpture clean and graffiti free. The sculpture is cantilevered over a dished channel that collects the feature water and reflects light from dozens of blue LED lights set into the underside of the sculpture. The channel runs into a shallow pool at the ‘sharp’ end of Cutting Edge simulating the quenching of a hot steel blade. Cutting Edge 2. Howard Street and Hallam Gardens The Howard Street project provides a vastly improved traffic-free route to the city centre by re-arranging the university service access and pedestrianising Howard Street including the acquisition of land for a new public garden at Sheffield Hallam University’s entrance on Hallam Square. The university, as partners in the Project, reconstructed their main entrance at the top of Howard Street and incorporated a new bookshop on land between Howard Street and Arundel Gate to create a terraced amphitheatre and focal point for the Hallam Gardens Rill Sink campus. A large development site was also created on Howard Street as shown on the route map. Regeneration Projects Design Team developed the design for a simple terraced garden closing the top of Surrey Lane, which has now become a service road to the University’s main delivery area. The garden consists of 6 terraced lawns enclosed by a stainless steel railing based on a crucible tong profile and edged by a curved and ramped stone sitting wall containing a small water feature. Water runs from a low fountain at the ‘source’ though a mosaic- lined channel to a concave sink at the bottom of the garden. The feature represents the teeming of molten metal and is side lit by an innovative fibre optic ‘lightbar’, which in turn is powered by eight projectors set in ventilated pits beneath the pavement. It was designed and constructed by Mosaic Workshop. Closing Howard Street to traffic has allowed the designers to create a tree-lined avenue with 12 illuminated stainless steel and granite seats for weary pedestrians climbing the hill. The bus Hallam Gardens Rill Source 5 gate at the bottom of the hill is lined with new stainless steel bollards, each fitted with two high intensity light emitting diodes to highlight the route from the Station at night. Water for the rill feature is filtered and sanitised in a small plant room that has been built into a raised shrub bed on the opposite side of Howard Street. The plant room also supplies irrigation water for the lawns, trees and shrub beds. New paving consists of shot sawn Yorkshire sandstone, and Howard Street at night blue/grey granite cubes and flags from Fujian Province, China. The granite flags are flame texture to improve grip in the wet and are laid on a rigid concrete basecourse using the latest bonding materials and techniques to eliminate expansion joints. Semi-mature fastigiate hornbeam trees are planted and anchored in large pits that extend beneath the paving using a special topsoil mix that can be fully compacted to support paving without affecting root growth. Custom designed ductile iron tree grilles are fitted with adjustable uplighters to illuminate the trees at night. The stainless steel discs in the centre of each seat are a temporary measure pending the sponsorship and production of Howard Street - before a set of artist designed plaques. Hallam Square: Until 2000 an intrusive dual carriageway, Arundel Gate, severed Hallam University campus from the civic Heart of the City. The downsizing of Arundel Gate, reestablishment of a surface pedestrian crossing and the creation of boulevard planting allowed the formation of Hallam Square. The project was funded by the Millennium Lottery Fund and Hallam University. Howard Street at night Howard Street - after 6 Plants in Winter Garden Millennium Galleries 3. Millennium Galleries and Winter Garden The Millennium Galleries and Sheffield Winter Garden open on to the Millennium Square, Tudor Square and Arundel Gate, and so form a valuable link in the Gold Route from Howard Street on up to the Peace Gardens. Tudor Square entrance to Winter Garden Both the Millennium Galleries and Sheffield Winter Garden were designed by Pringle Richards Sharratt Architects, with the Galleries opening in April 2001 and the Winter Garden opening later in May 2003. The Millennium Galleries is a modern, light and spacious building made mainly of glass and white concrete, with marble floors and high ceilings. The gallery breaks with the traditional institutional image of an art gallery and the Millennium Galleries create an outstanding venue for the visual arts, craft and design, right in the heart of Sheffield. With four individual galleries under one roof, there is free access Outside views of Millennium Galleries entrance on Arundel Gate to a permanent metal craft and the Ruskin collections, and paid access to other visiting collections and exhibitions. Built on two levels to make best use of the sloping site, the Galleries has an internal ‘avenue’ which leads from the entrance on Arundel Gate to the Winter Garden, and off which the four galleries are located.