00:/ - SOAR Works

SOAR (Southey Owlerton Area Regeneration) is a community-led regeneration charity in north Sheffield, which is developing a reputation for commissioning quality architecture for its regeneration projects in the most unassuming areas. The Paron Cross estate, where SOAR Works is located is an ocean of garden suburb semi-detached social housing developed in the 1930s after Sheffield’s first slum clearance.

SOAR Works is an Enterprise Centre comprising light industrial units, workshops, offices and artists’ studios with an aspiration of tempting local businesses and artists to set up with minimal commitment and expense. On the south façade, security is turned into a virtue with a celebration of perforated steel shutters covering every unit over all three floors. This exoskeletal layer performs a number of functions from protection and sun shading to image creation and communicator, signalling which units are occupied. The simple device of a perpendicular toughened glass panel with dichroic film separates the shutter from the glazing and filters coloured light across the façade and into the units. As this façade is always viewed obliquely, the panels, doubled by their reflections on the glazing, contribute far more colour than their size suggests.

On the opposite side of the building, a delicate series of galvanized and painted angles are used to create a more open façade that acts as the entrance way to the development.