South Yorkshire Housing Association — 30 years of projects across South Yorkshire

Celebrating South Yorkshire Housing Association at 50: and only two Chief Executives in 50 years

South Yorkshire Housing Association is 50 this year.

How have we managed to stay true to our founder’s mission?

Part of the answer lies in the consistency of our leadership: we have had only two Chief Executives in our 50-year history, John Belcher and Tony Stacey. It is also because of the quality of those two leaders and their commitment to our purpose.

Tony has announced his imminent, and well-deserved, retirement after 27 years. This blog uses the refurbishment of a former homeless hostel to tell the story of Tony’s contribution to South Yorkshire Housing Association.

A new works depot for South Yorkshire Housing Association: what makes the design uniquely ours?

At South Yorkshire Housing Association we have brought our Home Maintenance Team and our Neighbourhood Estate Action Team together in a new, shared depot.

The result is a depot like no other. What makes the design of this depot and the rest of our workspace uniquely South Yorkshire Housing Association's?

Come Home: how South Yorkshire Housing Association’s brand communicates our purpose

At South Yorkshire Housing Association we are delighted to have been named Landlord of the Year in the UK Housing Awards.

Our video submission captures the strength and integrity of our brand: how our images, stories, evidence and tone of voice come together to articulate and communicate our values and purpose.

This blog tells the story of how we developed our brand.

Dun Works, Sheffield: how can one person's enthusiasms generate a brand that speaks to a whole neighbourhood?

South Yorkshire Housing Association has ventured into a new type of housing: 225 flats for market rent in Kelham Island, Sheffield's most up and coming urban neighbourhood, recently voted one of the top 10 places to live in the UK.

These new homes are aimed at a new audience for us and needed a new approach to branding. But how to create a brand that is authentic, celebrates the neighbourhood and communicates our social values?

21 years of Live Projects: how Sheffield’s architecture students have helped shape the city region

Another batch of Live Projects - 17 in all - has just come to an end, beautifully curated and facilitated by Sam Brown from Sheffield’s School of Architecture.

Live Projects have been a key feature of training architects in Sheffield. They have also had real impact in the city and beyond. Why do they work so well?

Moments of Joy: the value of participatory arts

At South Yorkshire Housing Association we want our customers’ experience with us to be a joy.

Since 2013 we have been exploring through a series of test projects how participatory arts can add value to our purpose: with us you can settle at home, live well and realise your potential. We call this programme Moments of Joy.

This year the programme has had fresh impetus as a direct result of the pandemic: as we locked down our extra care housing (homes for people aged 55 and over) we knew we had to do more to connect with people isolated in their homes.

Pictorial meadows: the perfect urban landscape for our time?

The pandemic has helped us all notice the joy in small everyday details, the flowers, the birdsong. Staying close to home, walking daily through local streets and green spaces, has helped us appreciate the natural world around us.

And at the same time, the massive overnight reduction in road and air traffic, the resulting improvement in air quality, the reduced noise and the fragility of our food chains, has focused our minds on the bigger picture of climate change and our relationship with the natural world.

WikiHouse, Sheffield: could this be the solution to the UK’s housing crisis?

South Yorkshire Housing Association is the first housing association in the country (world?) to build a WikiHouse. Why did we do this?

The short answer is that in England we need to build more houses, better and faster, to hit the target of 300,000 new homes each year that is needed to tackle our housing crisis.

And we think WikiHouse could be part of the answer.

The longer answer is that while WikiHouse shares the benefits of other offsite construction methods - better/more airtight build quality, lower energy costs, higher environmental sustainability - it has some extra features which set it apart. These include: open source design, opportunities for citizen-led building, easy adaptation and distributed manufacture.

Slingsby Place: how can you make a 'place' with just 28 homes?

How can you make a "place" with just 28 homes? This is a recurring theme for South Yorkshire Housing Association whose 6,000 homes are dispersed across Sheffield City Region in groups of 10-100.