266 glossop road

266 Glossop Road, Sheffield, was home to Sinclair's China and Glass shop for over 30 years. Occupying a classic mid Victorian terrace the family run retail operation had expanded to occupy the whole urban block. Project Orange was appointed to produce proposals for the redevelopment of the site to create a new retail emporium and offices for the client together with twenty two apartments above. Car parking is provided in a new basement level.

The form of the building can be seen as a collision between two geometries; a flowing curvilinear facade meeting a rectilinear core. Bounded by roads on three sides, early studies showed that the most logical footprint was a three sided square spiral around a central well, providing light to a double height atrium to the rear of the shop and sheltered access decks for the residents above. The tail of the spiral abuts open land to the north, whilst the spiral core adjoins a proposed new development of student accommodation.

The three public facades of the building are wrapped in jet-black machine made brick challenging the orthodoxy of the municipal red brick vernacular. The perimeter of the trapezoidal site is rendered fluid yet hard, the form evoking a tower and a prow at the site's most prominent corners without ever being literal. The windows to the apartments, all floor to ceiling, are deeply recessed within the brick skin and occur at random intervals, shuffled across the facade. This dynamic is a wilful counterpoint to the mass of the masonry envelope and is further articulated through the use of translucent coloured glass ventilators within each window composition and strips of balconies of varying lengths.

We perceived the building as a metaphor for the client's business embracing the paradox of presenting the refined, precious and decorative against a hard-edged industrial townscape.