Many congratulations to Whittam Cox and all the team involved in the Alumno project bringing Beton House, Park Hill, Sheffield back to life to win this award !

Beton House, Sheffield, by Whittam Cox Architects

This empty 1960s concrete building at Park Hill, Sheffield has been adapted sensitively over five years by Sheffield-based practice Whittam Cox to add Alumno`s student accommodation to Urban Splash’s Grade II-listed regeneration project.

Attempting to address one of the main failings of the estate – single tenure housing – the scheme brings a high-density student community offer through three-storey townhouse typologies.

All done within the constraints of the iconic estate’s architecture, the scheme retains more of the structure’s physical elements than any of the previous refurbishments undertaken on the wider estate, saving a total of 577 tonnes of CO₂e.

As a ‘holistic scheme’, they thought this model of adaption should be celebrated. ‘It’s a lovely project that captures the spirit of the Retrofit Awards,’ they said.

‘What’s nice about this project is that it’s part of what Urban Splash couldn’t do at Park Hill. This has been a distressed building for over 20 years and saving it is a special characteristic of its revitalisation.’ FW

Location Sheffield • Client Alumno Group • Main contractor Kier Construction • Services engineer Cundall • Completion November 2020 • Occupation November 2020 • Project cost £19 million • Annual carbon emissions (post-refurbishment) 16.78 kgCO₂/m² (across whole site), 33 kgCO₂/m² (townhouses) • Area weighted U-value for whole envelope (post-refurbishment) 0.22 W/m²K