Introverted Extrovert
The Glade Site, whilst having an extroverted function, manifests in an introverted form, bringing people closer together physically and socially.
Verticality
The physical emphasis of this building is vertical. This reinforces the idea of a beacon within the community and helps residents locate the building.
Entrances
True to Gleadless fashion, the main entrance to the building is on the first floor, meeting the road on the North side.
Walkways
Exterior walkways provide access through the scheme. This allows the great outdoors to permeate the building, drawing upon research from my briefing document.
Angles
‘Free Space’ - areas angled 15° from north are accessible to everyone and have an open house policy - freedom to be creative.
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‘Controlled Space’ - areas angled at 45° from north are more controlled and have a stronger emphasis on the community and promoting interactions.
Horizontality
Extroverted Introvert
Entrance
Protection
Angles
The physical emphasis of this building is horizontal, following the winding dell beneath and contrasting with The Glade. This helps to place everyone ‘on the same level’ and reduces intimidation by presenting itself as less imposing.
The Dell Site, whilst having an introverrted function, manifests in an extroverted form which reaches out into the landscape, giving people space and peace.
True to Gleadless fashion, the main entrance to the building is on the second floor, meeting the existing infrastructure and descending down into the building.
To ensure the privacy and comfort of the clients, concrete walls provide a barrier between the private and public realm. This then allows the individual units to be open to the dell and yet still private.
‘Free Space’ - This area, being very limited on this site is the public face of the scheme.
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‘Controlled Space’ - Nearly the entirety of this building is at 45° from North. This is private area and only accessible to those receiving therapy in order to maintain their safety, privacy and comfort.
Contextual Inspiration
Piet Mondrian
Le Corbusier
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was a Dutch painter known as a pioneer of 20th century abstract art . His paintings, famous for their minimalistic grid-like style nearly always followed the following rules:
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1. Lines must always be black
2. Colours are kept strictly to black, white, red, blue, yellow and green
3. Lines must be parallel to the canvas
4. Lines must border a rectangle
5. No ‘L’ junctions. only ‘T’ junctions and complete crosses
6. A single horizontal and vertical line must cross the entirety of the canvas
Le Corbusier designed the Unité d’Habitation to align with the cardinal directions rather than the nearby river which would have been expected at the time. This allowed for the light exposure inside the apartments to be maximised. Similarly my scheme follows the 45 and 15 angles that are picked up from features on the site. This philosophy of angles can be applied to different aspects of the design for example the predominant direction of the structural form on varying levels.
Zooming out and analysing the site as a whole helped to identify some key angles which I will be playing on in the design of my scheme. The three main angles of interest are the relationship between the two sites, the angle of the lines of housing near the Glade and the angle of the bridge at the Dell.
Angles on Site
Knowing that a large number of the residents of Gleadless have young children, I re-imagined Le Corbusier’s Modular Man as a ‘modular mother’ with the additional dimensions of a child’s pram.
Le Corbusier’s Modular Man
When a building is situated ‘across the contour’ it is required to present the minimum dimensions to the slope, hence dwellings are narrowly fronted. Footpath access is employed and where this is too steep for convenience, terraces are staggered. An example of this can be found on Blackstock Road.
‘across the contours’
‘along the contours’
When Contours are roughly parallel for a horizontal distance of 25ft or more the ‘along the contours’ rule is applied. This invokes the use of terraced units featuring a reversed plan, also known as an ‘upside down’ house, examples of which can be found on Raeburn Road and Fleury Place.
In some cases none of the rules could be applied so the team developed bespoke dwellings, for example the three storey cruciform blocks which are dotted around the valley. Tower blocks like Raeburn and the Callows are also an exception, as well as Sportswood Mount and Derby Place.
Bespoke Dwellings
‘irregular contours’
Irregular curves and slopes make the use of terraced dwellings difficult. In this case, housing blocks with deck access providing entry at different hillside levels are employed. These designs can be found on Gleadless Road.
J.L. Womersley
John Lewis Womersley (1910-1990) was the city architect for Sheffield City Council’s Architecture Department and was responsible for the overseeing the development of both Park Hill and Gleadless Valley in the sixties. The estate is comprised of three neighbourhoods: Hemsworth, Rollerstone and Herdings. The original names of the farms located on the site prior to the redevelopment.
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A significant challenge when designing the scheme was the rolling terrain of the area. An initial analysis revealed that nearly 50% of the proposed residential areas had a slope steeper than one in eight ; reaching 1 in 4 in places. Womersley overcame this by using a diverse range of patio houses, chalet-type housing and blocks of cluster houses which could be varied in design to suit the slope.
Landscape Idiosyncracies
Contour plans 1:2000
CAD representations modelled by colleagues
These Cruciform block dwellings are arguably the most iconic and recognisable typology of Gleadless Valley. They consist of four segments set at varying levels to avoid excessive under building.