st paul’s place, sheffield

3 St. Paul’s Place, Sheffield represents the completion of the commercial components of the Heart of the City Masterplan for the site formerly occupied in part by the 1970’s extension to the Grade I listed Town Hall.

The masterplan introduced two new key pedestrian routes, one linking Arundel Gate and Norfolk Street, and the other Charles Street, St. Paul’s Place and the Winter Gardens. Office buildings one and two, together with the multi-storey car park (MSCP) are by Allies and Morrison. A thirty storey residential tower is by Conran and Partners.

Conceptually, building three, which comprises 76,000ft2 Grade A office area, is conceived as a heavily articulated glazed rectangular ‘box’, sitting on a scale-defining Stanton Moor stone plinth (with embedded artwork by Richard Perry) which addresses the level change across the site. The ground floor offices provide a transition between the two elements of the stone podium and the ‘box’ with a colonnade to Charles Street and Norfolk Street. Car parking and servicing is via a basement which extends under all buildings.

The building adopts the sectional heights of its neighbours, but significantly the offices rise 9 storeys above ground. This seeks to terminate the run of office buildings along Norfolk Street but also to establish nodal relationships with other taller buildings beyond in Union Street and within the New Retail Quarter.

The core is located in the centre of the north elevation and is arranged so as to permit the column-free floor plates to be subdivided into three autonomous offices, which in turn wrap around the core, affording views towards the Town Hall and St. Paul’s Place. The reception area is conceived as a space for incidental meetings and engagement.

The development was procured by a design and build contract, was completed in Spring 2016 and achieved BREEAM excellent.

‘As an exercise in urban context, Hodder has succeeded: the building feels very much a part of Sheffield’s rapidly changing skyline’.

Laura Mark

The Architects’Journal

23 May 2016