Went to an Urban splash tour of the Park Hill redevelopement / refurbishment the other day. To be honest i was expecting an Architectural tour - but instead it was much more of a PR exercise for U Splash, with no real access to the curent refurbishment . That said though i did learn some snippets of inforamation and Urban Splash are to be opening a showflat next Spring so things are looking up Anyhow there was a motley crew of about 40-50 folks there so there's obviously some interest in the old girl still! I got talking with a very nice chap by the name of Paul who'd travelled to Sheffield all the way from Cambridge just to see Park Hill as he'd read so much about it the estate from a Modernist / Brutalist perspective Paul like myself is somewhat obsessed with public housing and design - he has a very well informed webpage singleaspect.org.uk and (i can only assume ) is a member of 20th Century or C20th as its colloquially known - an organisation dedicated to the study and presevation of modern architecture He was interested in accessing other parts of the site not covered by Urban Splash so i gave him a brief whistle stop tour , unfortunately time was limited as i had a meeting shortly afterwards and also i'd just finished nights so my brain was slowly turning to mush ( it really was!) Anyhow we've kept in touch and have promised to meet up agin in the future and spend some more time up there, i am very pleased to note he found the towerblockmetal tour more informative than the Urban Spalsh pitch so maybe thtere's a gap in the market for tourguides of Park Hill ! - to be fair to USplash they have stated that they are organising a tour for C20th next year, fingers crossed i can blag a place eh! You can read all about mine and Pauls exploits at Park Hill by clickin here |
