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Sheffield Wildlife Trust, Environmental Resource Centre
New-build

  • Location

    Rotherham

Rotherham Borough Council have implemented flood defense measures that now protects an area of more than 30 Ha of flood plain, allowing protection for 70 businesses and enabling new developments to take place.

In 2009, The Sheffield Wildlife Trust created the Centenary Riverside Wetland Park, an Award-Winning place for wildlife to thrive and a place to commemorate local history and industry.

Mass Architecture were commissioned to undertake a feasibility study for an off-grid resource centre that would support groups of visitors coming to the park. The building was perceived as starting small and being added to over time. Therefore, it would need to be easy to extend.

The options developed take their conceptual starting point from a combination of the following:

• Industrial heritage of surrounding area

• A celebration of the regeneration of this previously contaminated and unused site

• Natural materials sourced from locality e.g. timber coppiced from local woodland

• Scale and spatial qualities of the context

The preferred option was a bunker-like building made with concrete walls imprinted with grasses and plants growing on the site. To soften and contrast with this heavy structure, a green roofing system would be installed and wild meadow seeds planted.