Away Day 2026: Sheffield
This year, our tradition of annual away days took us to Sheffield, a city with a diverse architectural mix. Away from our desks and screens the team came together to explore, learn and spend time with one another, something that's central to how we work. Over the course of the 2 days we soaked up the city's architecture, toured some buildings, visited a local practice: Peak Architects, and came back with fresh energy and plenty to talk about. Here's a few highlights:
Cultural Industries Quarter Conservation Area
Within this area are great examples of how thoughtful design can give old buildings a new life. We had a tour of Albert Works by Cartwright Pickard Architects, a fantastic example of adaptive re-use with a dramatic juxtaposition of new and old. We also stopped by Persistence Works by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios which is a purpose-built home for Yorkshire Artspace, and Site Gallery by DRDH Architects.
Park Hill
We were given a tour of Park Hill from Urban Splash who have led the re-generation of this fantastic site, starting with a look at the model in their sales office to let us take in the scale of the whole estate and understand how the regeneration is being delivered in stages. After years of decline, the estate was given Grade II* listed status in 1998, making it the largest listed building in Europe, a decision many people resisted at the time. Phase One was shortlisted for the 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize, and Phase Two later won major retrofit and housing design awards. Even the famous graffiti 'I Love You Will U Marry Me' has been immortalised in neon which says a lot about how this building is now treated as a piece of Sheffield's story rather than something to be erased. It is also now home to an award-winning RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden which was impressive to see close up.
Kelham Island
We took a stroll around Kelham Island, once the beating heart of Sheffield's steel industry and now one of the city's most talked-about neighbourhoods. The change is clearest in the new housing schemes Kelham Central and Little Kelham which have brought in low-carbon homes and apartments with commercial units at street level. What makes it feel like a real neighbourhood rather than just a collection of new buildings is the independent scene around it. Long-standing real ale pubs sit alongside newer brew bars, craft venues and independent kitchens, so the old and the new mix comfortably. We finished with dinner at Domo, a family-run Sardinian restaurant tucked into the ground floor of Little Kelham's Eagle Works. It was a good example of how new housing and independent hospitality can support each other.
The Wave
We had a tour of The Wave, the University of Sheffield's Faculty of Social Sciences building, designed by local practice HLM Architects. It brings five departments together under one roof (Sociological Studies, Journalism, the School of Education, the Sheffield Methods Institute and the Information School) after they were spread across many different buildings. It is organised around a central atrium with a glass roof that floods the heart of the building with daylight, and has achieved BREEAM Outstanding.
