Aspirations of the Compendium

The production of the Compendium presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a step change in the quality of future development and public space design in the Sheffield city centre. A five-to-ten year window of opportunity has been identified in which to bring about this change while the planning, design development and delivery of the strategic projects stemming from the Masterplan take place.

The Compendium involves both process, including interaction with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure consensus and ownership, and product, in the form of design guidance and strategic recommendations.

Building on the overall vision of the Masterplan, the Compendium provides the detailed design guidance required to raise the quality of Sheffield's built environment, and ensure cohesion in the urban form and public space of the city centre. As an essential part of this aim, the Compendium has been developed to provide clarity for those who play a key role in the process of making decisions about the urban environment - designers, Council officers, politicians and the citizens of Sheffield.

The importance of each of these groups having ownership of the document was identified at the outset of preparing the Compendium, acknowledging that its success was reliant on those who must apply the principles and guidance contained within. The wealth of knowledge and range of perspectives of those who live and work within Sheffield has provided the foundations of the Compendium.

The key to the success of the Compendium is in achieving balanced and clear design guidance that does not prescribe or pre-empt an outcome. In developing the strategic and quarter specific guidance in this document, every attempt has been made to capture the essence of Sheffield's distinct characteristics and to establish a framework within which design innovation and excellence can flourish.