Design process
The Peace Gardens, owned and maintained by the city council, is one of three elements of Sheffield's Heart of the City Public Realm Project.
Masterplanning, design, community consultation, liaison with artists, specification, tender and on-site work for the Peace Gardens was all done in house by the City Council's Design and Property Department and Planning and Transport Service, and included a Principal Landscape Architect who acted as design team leader.
The gardens' unique setting adjacent to the Grade 1 listed Town Hall was the subject of wide consultation. An initial exhibition was held for the Heart of the City Public Realm Project in January 1995 followed by an exhibition specifically for the Peace Gardens in November 1995, with over 1,000 people attending the exhibition and 800 people completing the questionnaire. This consultation established the public desire for a civic garden rather than a civic square, which led to a complex project using many specialist skills, ranging from a ceramic artist, stone-carvers, specialist lettering designers, lighting designers, water engineers and horticulturalists.
The busy city centre site necessitated regular liaison between the design team and city centre traders regarding design, construction and the impact of traffic, and also with city centre residents, over issues such as noise and night-time working. Work started on site in August 1997, and was completed by November 1998. To ensure that the ERDF grant was spent by December 1998, a fast-track management contract and 36 separate work contracts were carefully let in sequence to achieve early completion.
The 7,200m2 site benefits from an enhanced city centre maintenance programme which provides regular litter clearance, high pressure jetting of paving to remove chewing gum and dirt, rapid response for graffiti removal, and 24 security guard and CCTV. The gardens require high levels of management and maintenance, and with soft landscape management plans developed by the landscape architect for the project, the gardens have a dedicated and knowledgeable gardener who played a major role in the planting of the site.
