November 22 2019

A major mixed-use development in Raploch, Stirling, is being brought forward comprising a 71-bed care home, accommodation for 305 students and amenity space in accordance with a masterplan drawn up by ADP on behalf of Caledon | TDL.

Orchard Village sits on a currently disconnected site which will be drawn back into the city centre by the creation of new pedestrian links and enhanced public realm while helping to reconnect the historic city core with the riverfront.

Conceived as two distict elements Unum Partnership are responsible for the design of the care home for Northcare (Scotland) while Wellwood Leslie Architects took the reins of the student village for Scape Homes.

Architecture takes its cue from surrounding horizontal tenements with a reinterpretation of historic window rhythms, dormers and roof planes in a materials palette of stone rainscreen, metal cladding and buff/grey multi brick, symapthetic to the Bruce Street conservation area.

Built around the existing Orchard House Health Centre the scheme will include a programme of streetscape improvements to transform Union Street into a planted pedestrian boulevard.

11 Comments

#1 Posted by johnny5 on 22 Nov 2019 at 12:57 PM

Boring, bland, soul less. i expected better of ADP to be honest. Hardly a village - more of an remand centre. The care home is the best of the bunch. Perhaps it's just the visuals - when were they drawn - 2007?

#2 Posted by MrsT on 22 Nov 2019 at 13:43 PM

If you delve a little deeper into the application ADP were the Masterplan architects, looks like the proposals for the Student Housing are by Wellwood Leslie and the Care Home by Unum.

#3 Posted by John Glenday on 22 Nov 2019 at 14:42 PM

Apologies, I've corrected the erroneous attribution above.

Unum Partnership were indeed responsible for the design of the care home for Northcare (Scotland) and Wellwood Leslie Architects were responsible for the student village for Scape Homes. ADP were employed in the capacity of masterplan architect by the developer, Caledon | TDL.

#4 Posted by Monika Urban on 22 Nov 2019 at 17:28 PM

The Care Home is definitely the best feature of the development and overall I find the masterplan a progressive and attractive plan for Stirling. My experience with Sterling High Street is quite a dull one.

#5 Posted by mick on 25 Nov 2019 at 11:52 AM

A further example of the expressive architecture of excessive blandness.

#6 Posted by Mick on 25 Nov 2019 at 12:16 PM

Never raise your eyes, never raise your sights, never aspire to greatness. A crap building buttressed between two other crap buildings in a prime riverside site. The Evening Times lapped up its sales pitch. It was was knocked out because its marketing people said it had a skybar. Well, whoopee. Hang your head in shame people

#7 Posted by Dulnain on 25 Nov 2019 at 18:29 PM

The arial view could well be mistaken for a new prison, the well camouflaged perimeter wall and the isolated exercise yards. Can only hope the Council demands better for a prominent site.

#8 Posted by Dave on 26 Nov 2019 at 12:11 PM

The scale looks completely out of context for the location, even the Castle looks small (or is it far away?). Echo above, the care home is okay, the student meh. Sadly, the lack of vision Stirling Council has will likely see this get consented.

#9 Posted by Walt Disney on 29 Nov 2019 at 10:39 AM

Don't know why so many people are doen on this. I think it will be a really positive development. Do you know what's there at present? A really busy road, a choked roundabout, a 1970s health centre and some pretty ineffective open space. If the council ask for too much the developers will just walk away. Its Stirling, so developer returns on this site will be marginal.

#10 Posted by Dave on 29 Nov 2019 at 15:05 PM

@ #9 As a local resident i am pretty familiar with the site, but can't agree with the inference that because you consider the existing plot to be low value; and "its Stirling" that we should accept any old development.

I have no issue with student developments per se, but this scheme falls into the same trap of many in that it doesn't integrate with it's local community and therefore offers little urban value.

Architecturally, there is little precedence of residential accommodation of this scale and density in the locale. Perhaps cues have been taken from the Forthside barracks but that only reinforces the perception that this is an institutional development. It would have been nice to see the mass broken down and more variety in the materiality/tonality. This shouldn't affect a developers viability, unless they are really scraping the barrel.

#11 Posted by Walt Disney on 29 Nov 2019 at 17:01 PM

#10 - Dave, I live 3 miles away and both my kids are Stirling born and bred, so apologies if it looked like I was putting Stirling down. I was trying to make the point that developing in Stirling is a very tough gig with higher build costs and lower returns, so quite often, depending on the land deal, they are pretty close to the barrell bottom.

Its unfortunate that so much of Stirling centre has been compromised by poor roads planning - this site being one of them.

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