What would you like built next to the Peace Gardens?

As I'm sure a lot of people are aware, the council and Sheffield One are planning to build a hotel between the new Winter Garden and the Town Hall and Peace Gardens. I am interested in this as I feel there are better alternatives, but these alternatives have been rebuked by councillors. A letter from Jan Wilson stated that the biggest problem with moving the hotel was that of what to do with the site you move it from. This seems to me to be a fantastic opportunity to carefully plan and develop one of the city's best vacant sites, not a problem. As such, I would be interested to see what the general public would like to see built between the Winter Gardens and the Town Hall, or even if they'd like to see the site landscaped and used as an open, urban space.

Sheffield badly needs a large open events square in the city centre.This is the perfect location for a sunken square with a permanent water supply so it can be flooded during the summer holidays to form a paddling pool and,with refrigeration units located underneath,it then becomes an ice skating rink during winter.A similar scheme is very successful in Amsterdam.For the rest of the year it is used for a variety of events.

There are two excellent suggestion's here, but the trouble is the proposed hotel will bring a lot of much needed revenue in to this city.A square for public use would encourage vandalism, and it would have to be patrolled for twenty four hour's a day,therefore, costing a lot of money without any income. I am in favour of the proposed skyscraper hotel, which was mooted by an architect in the "star" a few week's ago. However, the general public voted for the present plan's so, as we live in a democracy that is what we shall get. No one can deny,that this council is putting sheffield on the map with some wonderfull Ideas for the city centre, alright, it is costing big bucks, but since when did anything good come cheap?

The square sounds like a great idea - that is where all the anti war protestors can go! Get em all in one place so they can be shot for treason.

Then when the war is over it can be used a an open air abatoir to teach the general public how to kill their food.

But even more seriously - I would have thought sheffield was in need of a hotal perhaps not a skyscraper type as I am afraid of heights, but it may encourage the airport to open again bringing much needed peeps into the city.

Gardens are fine but in the centre we need it to look like a city - leave the greenery and niceities for the outskirts - lets fill the town centre with public convienieces so we can confuse newcomers as to whether they are in Sheffield or not.

As a nother option you could always have an alternative lap dancing club! All the women who would dance would be older women wanting to feel sexy - we could call it the "The Hippos"

Moon Maiden

A large Museum dedicated to abject failure would be the most appropriate thing.

Excellent idea. Top marks.

I agree that the hotel has to be built - Sheffield deserves a quality hotel and I'm in no doubt that it would boost the economy. The council reacted as though people wanted no hotel in the city centre when people suggested alternatives to the proposals submitted by the council and Sheffield One. I think most people are in agreement that a hotel would be a good idea. I just think they've made a dumb decision putting it next to the Winter Gardens. I'm impressed by the other proposed developments in the city (new Midland Station frontage, public spaces around the City Hall) and agree the money needs to be found somewhere. The council is running the risk of overdeveloping the Heart of the City site (around the Peace Gardens) which would damage the city's image. You can't measure the 'income' of a public space as it's effect is largely psychological, but that effect is just as important as the money-making aspects of the city. Offices have lobbies to make them pleasant - that space could be more economically used as office space but the office building would be unpleasant to visit and work in as a result. Open urban spaces, or the lack of them, have the same effect.

Just to make it clear - the only proposal the general public had a chance to vote on was the current one. There were no alternatives made available - the alternatives the public could vote on in the Fargate exhibition were to do with the offices that would be built by the Peace Gardens, not the hotel itself. The hotel in both options was the same. The pictures people were given to choose from even showed the offices as being transparent, which is stupid.

Two proposals for alternatives were made in the Sheffield Telegraph - one for a skyscraper hotel (Michael Smith's proposal), the other for moving the hotel to the other side of the Peace Gardens (Geoff Green's proposal). I favour the latter - the site Geoff Green proposes building on is earmarked for offices, but there are plenty of spaces available very close for offices. This would leave the Winter Garden site to be developed more sensitively - Geoff Green suggests a building about half the size of the proposed hotel and an extension to the Peace Gardens, which should be no more of a maintenance problem than the Peace Gardens presently are (should address halevan's point about vandalism). The only thing he hasn't suggested is what use this smaller building would have. There's a great opportunity to make proposals for this (and sensible ones too - while I agree the general public should be shown how animals are slaughtered I'd rather it wasn't done next to the Peace Gardens!). It isn't a problem as the council would have us believe.

The skyscraper alternative was interesting but I have my doubts about it. I've just been to look at the planning application for the council's proposed hotel, though, and compared to that the skyscraper is at least original. The proposed hotel will cast huge shadows over the Peace Gardens, push a road between the hotel and the Town Hall and damage the pedestrian areas round Tudor Square and Norfolk Street by making that the main access for taxis and cars. The building is unimaginative and overbearing - exactly the opposite of the Winter Garden and Millennium Galleries.

Just before they knocked down the old town hall (the egg box) an old guy came on one of the local radio stations and asked a local councellor why they were knocking down a relatively new building, they reply was that after 30 years or so all buildings tend to become out of date and obsolete.

"why then" the old man replied "am I living in a 60 year old council house".

The silence was deafening

I wish I'd been listening to that Obsolesence isn't age-related - it's design related. I'm not saying the old man's 60 year-old council house wasn't obsolete (I'm quite sure it was otherwise he wouldn't be making that point) but the eggbox was obsolete because of bad design. After all, if all buildings are obsolete after 30 years why didn't they demolish the Victorian town hall?

A couple of years ago one of the people responsible for buildings in London's Square Mile (I think he was a planner) caused controversy by requesting that poor quality buildings be built there so that they wouldn't get listed. This was so that they could be demolished after 25 years and replaced. This moronic strategy favours developers, as it means more work for them (theoretically it favours architects too, as developers employ architects, though tellingly architects were up in arms about the idea). The buildings currently constructed in the Heart of the City project - the Millennium Galleries and Winter Garden - were architect-led. They were designed by a respected, independent architectural practice and it shows. Like them or not, they are original and high-quality buildings. The rest of the Heart of the City project is developer-led, hence it's being over-developed and under-designed in the name of saving a quantity of money that will be negligible compared to the cost of re-developing the site in 30 years when they're as out-dated as the Eggbox was.

The hotel will be built in it's given location, it will block most of the only side view of the lovely winter gardens building and it will no doubt be a rather unorigonal building. I also thought that swapping the office and hotel sites was a good idea and makeing the office block smaller would leave more of the gardens on show. A planner or councillor replied that this could not be done due to accesibility of the hotel being too difficult (si it's OK for the office then) and also that the offices would not provide enough spaces. Firstly, we are not Leeds, have all these office spaces allready been alocated?? and secondly in the summer there is barely a glimps of grass to be seen for all the office worker bums that are sat on it. I think that more grass would be lovely. Call me simple, but the space would look lovely kept more open and green, I'm sure our hotel guests would appreciate it too! Birmingham I think provides a good example of how ugly and dull a stone and concrete centre can be. I don't agree that we should keep our greenness on the outskirts, it should be made part of the centre too.

What about a big Dome shaped object? Not sure what to put in it but I'm sure they'll think of something interesting by the time it's built :-)

Malaika - I agree (and I find the dome idea intriguing).

I thought if anything access to the Winter Garden side of the Peace Gardens would be harder than to the other side of the site, but found out why when looking at the planning drawings it's not. They are planning to put a ramp to the underground car park beneath the hotel from Surrey Street, basically opposite Tudor Square. Jan Wilson argued to me that they felt a hotel would be necessary to enliven Tudor Square. Quite how a car ramp enlivens a public square is lost on me. Also, access to the hotel entrance will be achieved by extending Norfolk Street up to the Peace Gardens (down the back of the Town Hall). This is going to make the Peace Gardens delightful - this road will no doubt be used by waiting taxis.