Sheffield Winter Garden is a large temperate glasshouse located in the city of

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and metropolitan county, metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of City of Doncaster, Doncaster and City of Sh ...

. 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 Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. It is home to more than 2,000

plants Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude ...

from all around the world. It was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 22 May 2003. Part of the £120 million Heart of the City regeneration project that has created the Peace Gardens and the £15 million Millennium Galleries, the Winter Garden was designed by Pringle Richards Sharratt Architects and Buro Happold and is some long and high. The building has background frost protection to a minimum of 4 degrees Celsius and it is one of the largest Glued Laminated Timber or "Glulam" buildings in the UK (Glulam is made by forming and gluing strips of timber into specific shapes). The wood used is

Larch Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains fur ...

, 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 harm 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 "learn" year by 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 A watering can (or watering pot) is a portable container, usually with a handle and a funnel, used to water plants by hand. It has been in use since at least A.D. 79 and has since seen many improvements in design. Apart from watering plants, it ha ...

, as it is the only way to ensure that all the plants get the correct amount of water.

Project team

*Clients: Sheffield City Council *Architects: Pringle Richards Sharratt Architects *Project Management: Sheffield City Council *Quantity Surveyors: Sheffield City Council *Structural & Services Engineers: Buro Happold *Fire and Access Consultants: Buro Happold FEDRA *Lighting Consultants: Bartenbach LichtLabor/ Lichttechnik Martin Klingler *Winter Garden Landscape Consultant: Weddle Landscape Design *Planning Supervisor: Sheffield City Council *Management Contractor: Interserve Project Services Ltd *Plant supply, planting and aftercare: Rentokil Tropical Plants Ltd

Partners

The Winter Garden was funded by the

Millennium Commission The Millennium Commission, a United Kingdom public body, was set up to celebrate the turn of the millennium. It used funding raised through the UK National Lottery to assist communities in marking the close of the second millennium and celebra ...

, Sheffield City Council and

English Partnerships English Partnerships (EP) was the national regeneration agency for England, performing a similar role on a national level to that fulfilled by regional development agencies on a regional level. On 1 December 2008 its powers passed to a successor ...

Awards won

* RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) Pro Yorkshire Award for Design & Innovation *

RIBA The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...

(Royal Institute of British Architects) Award ith the Millennium Galleries * European Federation of Interior Landscaping Groups – three gold awards * The

Variety Club of Great Britain Variety, the Children's Charity is a charitable organization founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1927. History On October 10, 1927, a group of eleven men involved in show business set up a social club which they named the "Variety Club". On ...

– Best Regeneration Award *

Royal Fine Art Commission The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) was an executive non-departmental public body of the UK government, established in 1999. It was funded by both the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for ...

Jeu D’esprit'' Building of the Year' Award * British Guild of Travel Writers – Commendation * Civic Trust

Green Flag Award The Green Flag Award is an international accreditation given to publicly accessible parks and open spaces, managed under licence from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, a UK Government department, by Keep Britain Tidy, ...

* Also instrumental in

's win in the

entente florale The Entente Florale Europe (, "Flowery Alliance of Europe") is an international horticultural competition established to recognise municipalities and villages in Europe for excellence in horticultural displays. Trophies are presented annually by t ...

award An award, sometimes called a distinction, is something given to a recipient as a token of recognition of excellence in a certain field. When the token is a medal, ribbon or other item designed for wearing, it is known as a decoration. An awar ...

2005

References

External links

Winter Garden pages on Sheffield City Council's website

Weddle Landscape Design – Landscape Architects and Horticulturalists for Sheffield Winter Garden
{{coord, 53.379849, N, 1.467997, W, scale:1000_region:GB, display=title W W Buildings and structures completed in 2003 W Greenhouses in the United Kingdom Gardens in South Yorkshire