It’s a delight when the opportunity arises to deliver a project close to home. Commissioned by Barnsley Council, and in collaboration with Willmott Dixon and DZA Technical Ltd, we delivered three magnificent large-scale steel rose structures as part of an urban placemaking initiative.
Designed by artist Tim Ward and refined by our team in consultancy, we created a stunning public art installation with a 25-year design life. Two of the roses were 12 metres in height, the third 15 metres with a span of 13 metres, each fitted with lighting and audio provision to enhance their presence and impact on site.
We manufactured the roses in three component pieces; a central column representing the stem, a knuckle to support the weight of the flower, and a flower head constructed of an inner and an outer layer of curved steel fretwork petals with stamens at their centre.
Made of mild steel, the materials were first laser cut in our machine shop and transported to our metal shop for fabrication. Due to the exacting nature of the project, we carried out a test build of a 12 metre rose and invited our project partners to Stage One to review the artwork.
Watch what happened here.
Once manufactured, the roses were transported to third party suppliers, first galvanised and then painted in a high-grade finish suitable for long-term installation in outdoor conditions. The columns were pre-built at Stage One whilst we assembled the flower heads on site, having designed and built a custom base jig for support.
Each rose took a week to install; the column lifted into place, the knuckle lifted onto the column, and finally the flower head lifted onto the stem structure, our rigging team up high on cherry pickers to fix each component piece into place.
This video captures their installation prior to the site being completed in the Spring of 2026.
And here are the Yorkshire Roses on the opening night of The Seam Digital Campus (phase one).
