The Calderwood Project
“Hello I’m Peter Stirling, managing director of Stirling Developments and leader of the Calderwood project.”
In the seven years following my first encounter, this remarkable site and its surrounding environs have been inspirational; instilling me and the project team with a determination to ensure its true potential is fulfilled. We aim to design and deliver a place without compromise, one that represents the best of human endeavour, an environment we’d all love to live in.
The project has also become a quest to develop a new approach; to make “development” a manifesto for positive improvement. Something to celebrate. The current “credit crunch” and dramatic global economic down turn has highlighted the need to deliver desirable products at good value. Much of the UK’s volume house building has under-delivered for customers which has often resulted in soulless housing estates, ill-equipped to serve the new community or enhance the local area. Stirling Development’s approach will be founded on trust and partnership. We aim to build communities, not housing estates.
The Calderwood project champions passion, spirit and innovation – qualities that can produce extraordinary, great things. We will not automatically accept standard approaches, we will aim to discover and deliver the optimum solutions that best enhance the quality of life for the new community.
Delivering a great place is not an easy task and we have not underestimated the challenges associated with the scale of the project and the extent of our ambitions outlined in this book. To be successful we will need the help and support of many people and organisations. To help achieve this I have tried to open up the project to as many people as possible and the resulting collaboration and participation has really benefited Calderwood.
I’ve also tried to lead by example and as the project leader I’ve led and fronted all our presentations and workshops. Unfortunately the development industry often waters-down good plans with short-term strategies, which prioritise quick profits over long-term gains. Stirling Developments are in the unusual situation of being both the masterplanners and principal developers. This will provide much more security for the project’s design ambitions. Our focus is long term and our objective is to deliver the best development possible. We want to be proud of what we create and we will invest in the long-term success and well-being of the project.
This book provides the masterplan and a Strategic Design Guide for the Calderwood new community. It aims to establish the design principles and development framework to guide subsequent detailed planning applications and the future build out. It is part of a suite of documents, the others being more technical in nature, which will make up our outline planning application. Calderwood is a project very close to my heart and writing this book has allowed me an opportunity to properly express my vision of what this project can achieve.
I’ve experimented with different ways of conveying the books information and content. After all its pointless investing time producing a Strategic Design Guide if its messages aren’t absorbed and the “Guide” isn’t eventually used by planning officials, future developers or other stakeholders. In the end I opted for simple, clear messages with the hope they’d be more memorable.
Investing the time to write and produce this book has hopefully underscored the commitment and passion I have for the project. And as the lead developer I am publicly committing myself to the strategies and statements I have personally written in this book. We live in an evolving world that constantly challenges us and we must have faith and confidence in our ability to create the optimum environments for the future. This book represents a fresh approach of how we can deliver the communities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Calderwood.
Peter Stirling
Managing Director
Stirling Developments.
