Park Hill, Sheffield
| Park Hill Flats | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Location | Sheffield |
| Coordinates | 53°22′48″N 1°27′29″W / 53.380°N 1.458°W |
| Status | Under renovation |
| Area | 400 acres (160 ha) |
| Units | 995 |
| Density | People 192 per acre (470/ha) |
| Constructed | 1957-1961 |
| Construction | |
| Architect | Jack Lynn Ivor Smith under J L Womersley |
| Contractors | Direct service organisation |
| Authority | Sheffield City Council |
| Style | Brutalism |
| Influenced by | Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation and the Smithsons' |
| Refurbished | |
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|
| Proposed action | Strip to H frame and rebuild |
| Units | 257 flats for sale, 56 flats for rent, 12 flats for shared ownership, a new GPs’ surgery, a nursery, retail and leisure facilities. |
| Designed by | Studio Egret West, Hawkins Brown and Grant Associates |
| Contractors | Urban Splash |
| Directing authority | Sheffield City Council |
| Listed | |
| Listed | 1998 |
| Listed as | Grade II* |
Park Hill is a council housing estate in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. It was built between 1957 and 1961, and in 1998 was given Grade II* listed building status. Following a period of decline, the estate is being renovated by developers Urban Splash. The renovation was one of the six short-listed projects for the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize. The Estate falls within the Manor Castle ward of the City. Park Hill is also the name of the area in which the flats are sited. The name relates to the deer park attached to Sheffield Manor, the remnant of which is now known as Norfolk Park.
Park Hill was previously the site of back-to-back housing, a mixture of 2–3-storey tenement buildings, waste ground, quarries and steep alleyways. The streets were arranged in a gridiron with continuous terraces of back-to-back houses facing the streets, backing onto other houses facing into an internal court-yard. There were shared privies that were not connected to mains drainage. One standpipe supporting up to 100 people. It was colloquially known as "Little Chicago" in the 1930s, due to the incidence of violent crime there.Clearance of the area began during the 1930s. The first clearance was made for the Duke/Bard/Bernard Street scheme in 1933. The courts were replaced with four storey blocks of maisonettes. In 1935 it was proposed to clear the central area which included streets to the south of Duke Street; South Street, Low Street, Hague Lane, Lord Street, Stafford Street, Long Henry Street, Colliers Row, Norwich Street, Gilbert Street and Anson Street. John Rennie, the city’s Medical Officer of Health, concluded:
G. C. Craven, the city's Planning officer recommended wholesale demolition and possible replacement with multi-storey flats. The Second World War halted this.
Following the war it was decided that a radical scheme needed to be introduced to deal with rehousing the Park Hill community. To that end architects Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith under the supervision of John Lewis 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' unbuilt schemes, most notably for Golden Lane in London, the deck access scheme was viewed as revolutionary at the time. The style is known as brutalism.
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