The Sheffield Winter Garden is the second phase of the £120m Heart of the City regeneration project, following the £15m Sheffield Millennium Galleries. It is one of the largest temperate glasshouses to be built in the UK during the last hundred years, and the largest urban glasshouse anywhere in Europe. Housing more than 2,000 plants from all around the world, the garden was the most generous part of the scheme, rises from either end through glazed elliptical timber arches, and through its center the galleries appear to ripple towards the street.

The palette of materials and spatial articulation recalls the public buildings of Hopkins & Partners where both Pringle and Sharratt worked extensively, experience which allowed them to tackle such a project with ease. The measures are approximately some 70 m long and 21 m high. The building was conceived as a covered galleria an integral part of the network of pedestrian streets which together with the Millennium Galleries forms a pedestrian hub linking the Civic, Arts and University quarters of Sheffield, a cultural route through to the city center.

Jonathan Glancey, in the Guardian, comments about this, “Rooted, in part, in the majestic shopping and promenading galleries threaded through Milan and Naples in the late 19th century, Sheffield’s Winter Garden and Millennium Galleries are a generous urban ideal realised in deft modern design by the architects Pringle Richards Sharratt.” While the galleries bring together clear-spirited, clean-cut architecture with high-quality art of every sort, the Sheffield Winter Garden is a delightfully Gothic-spirited design that soars above the governing roofline.

Here is the sort of covered meeting place British cities have been lacking for so long. This brave and popular new complex of permeable, public city centre buildings may prove to be a template for town and city centres else where in Britain, cold or hot, north or south. The Sheffield Winter Garden has background frost protection to minimum of 4° Celsius and it’s one of the largest Glue Laminate or ‘Glulam’ buildings in the UK (Glulam is made by shaping and gluing strips of timber into specific shapes).

The wood chosen is Larch, a durable timber which will, over time, turn a light silvery grey colour. The larch, derived from sustainable forests, requires no preservatives or coatings. This reduces the use of solvents and also avoids the use of chemicals that could kill the plants. It has an intelligent Building Management System which controls fans and vents to make sure the plants are cooled in summer and kept warm in winter. The system will be adapting from year to year.

The bedding plants are changed five times a year, to give a seasonal change, and all the plants are watered by hose or by watering can, as it’s the only way to ensure that all the plants get the correct amount of water. The Sheffield Winter Garden has been sponsored by the Millennium Commission, Sheffield City Council and English Partnerships. Clear and legible with forms and materials that are natural and familiar, the Sheffield Winter Garden is spectacular and awesome providing a memorable experience for all visitors in any age, young and old. It was officially opened by Her Majesty the Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh in May 22, 2003.

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