The vote for the new building name is now open and can be accessed here.
Due for completion in Spring 2023, the new building includes social and study spaces available to all students and staff, and a new public cafe. The building will be home to the Faculty of Social Sciences, providing a purpose-built hub for a number of subjects, including state-of-the-art teaching spaces and subject-specific facilities.
Featuring curved glass facades and overlapping curved upper floors, it is being constructed on the corner of Witham Road and Northumberland Road in Broomhill, on the western edge of campus.
Staff and students from the departments who will be using the new building were asked for suggestions for names which reflected its physical design and location. From dozens of suggestions, a shortlist of three names is now being put to a public vote:
- The Vista
- Western Peak
- The Wave
The building will be the most sustainable design ever built by the University. Ground-source heat pumps will provide heating in the winter and cooling in summer, while solar panels are used to generate electricity. The building is the University’s first net zero in operation.
New public landscaping and greenspace will help improve the local environment’s biodiversity. Flood risk will be mitigated through Sustainable Drainage Schemes (SuDS), made up of rain gardens and extensive tree planting, adding to the 10,400 trees already on the University’s estate. Outdoor social spaces will be open for all to use and have been designed to link the building with the University’s other recent public realm works on the Concourse and Leavygreave Road.
This new building sets a new standard for sustainable design on campus as it is our first net zero in operation. The University is employing the latest in sustainable design techniques and technologies to ensure that while our estate changes to meet the needs of our university community, it is becoming much more carbon efficient
Keith Lilley
Director of Estates
Inside, the building will be home to the University’s Departments of Journalism Studies and Sociological Studies; the Information School; School of Education; Sheffield Methods Institute; Social Research Institutes; and the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership as well as professional staff for the Faculty of Social Sciences. New teaching spaces, workshop rooms, offices and social space will provide students and staff with a modern, collaborative, working, teaching and research environment. The public cafe will provide further social and relaxation space for staff, students, the local community and visitors to the nearby hospitals.
We are delighted that our most sustainable building is nearing completion. We want all staff and students, past, present and future, and the wider Sheffield community, to have a say in the name for our new building. This new facility will be an asset long into the future in helping to attract the best and brightest students and the most exciting research projects to Sheffield.
Professor Gill Valentine
Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Voting closes on Friday 9 December and the winning name will be announced shortly after.