Geography and Planning Building – Sheffield

Architect – William Whitfield & Partners

Construction – 1970-71

I couldn’t find any information on this building when I originally posted this. But I was contacted by an academic from the Geography department who gave me the dates of construction and the architect. He also sent me some of the original plans and drawings for the building, along with some great photos taken shortly after completion. Apparently it is a “challenging” building to work in, but it can’t be denied that it has character.

The building itself is a cluster of hexagonal structures of various heights attached to a rectangular block. The concrete structure frames sections of brick in a style similar to the Park Hill estate flats. In addition to the use of hexagons, the building has some interesting little features that mark it out, such as the vertical windows which sandwich the concrete piers on the upper floors and the diagrid detailing on the portico ceiling. A small green separates this building from the Arts Tower and, as you can see from the first photo, when the sun is out young scholars recline and take in the views of the surrounding first class modernist architecture.