NEW CASTLE TOUR

NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY
City Campus East



The buildings, were designed by Atkins and built by Sir Robert McAlpine. City Campus East features a host of innovative design concepts including solar collectors on the roof to produce hot water, rain harvesters to collect water for flushing toilets. Computerised heating and lighting sensors to ensure power is only used when rooms are occupied and the general design of the buildings, including the light-well in the Newcastle Business School and School of Law building, allows as much natural light in as possible.
I stumble across this building during my self guided tour of Newcastle. Very contemporary well designed spaces and structures. Certainly the best university campus i have seen. It must be great to be a student here, and i am sure, they all pass exams with flying colours, if the psychology behind well designed spaces is positive.

METRO RADIO

This building is located in the centre of Newcastle, surrounded by a traffic circulatory on the north bank of the River Tyne. I saw the pink from a distance and decided to investigate what it was. The different colours make that area stand out. it actually makes everything else around there seem grey and dull.

THE BLACK GATE

This was the last part of the defences of the castle of Newcastle upon Tyne, added 1247-1250, and formed an additional, projecting, gateway or barbican to the earlier north gate of the castle.
The building is surrounded by beautiful cobble paving which brings out its age. Loved the cherry blossom tree growing beside the building.

SANDGATE STEPS

Sandgate Steps is a public space with artwork incorporated in it, on the East Quayside landscape. The arrangement of the steps, allows exploration and have bollard-shaped railing units at each level, resembling curling waves flowing down toward the river.

THE SAGE

Built by architects Foster and partners, The sage is said to be one of the city's great social spaces as well as a regional music centre of international standing. The entire complex is sheltered beneath a broad, enveloping roof that is ‘shrink-wrapped’ around the buildings beneath and extends over a public concourse. The stunning £70 million Norman Foster building provides for all kinds of music. It includes a 1700 seat hall, a flexible 4-500 seat hall, the Northern Rock Foundation Hall for rehearsal, performance and education, a high-tech music information resource centre run by Gateshead Libraries, Arts and Information and housed in the Joan and Margaret Halbert Space.
www.cycle-routes.org/.../tyne/sage.html

GATESHEAD MILLENNIUM BRIDGE

The world's first and only tilting bridge!

Designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects and engineered by Gifford, the bridge takes its place at the end of a line of distinguished bridges across the River Tyne, including the Tyne Bridge and Robert Stephenson's High Level Bridge.
Linking Gateshead with Newcastle via Gateshead Quays and Newcastle's Quayside, the bridge not only serves a functional purpose as the River Tyne's only foot and cycle bridge, but its grace and engineering attract people from all over the world.www.gateshead.gov.uk

The mix of bridges, this one being the most contemporary and ingenious , makes a very interesting walk or cycle along the River Tyne.

LIFE CENTRE/TIME SQUARE

Designed by internationally acclaimed architect, Terry Farrell, Life Conference and Banqueting incorporates three distinctive buildings - a purpose built Conference Centre, the Bioscience Centre and the science centre.
Life is home to world-class conferencing facilities. Three very distinctive venues come together along with an outdoor space, each offering something altogether different for any event. unfortunately, the most interesting thing for me was a little wavy stip of worn out paving, that run along small part of the square. The building and arrangement was impressive too, but for some reason i was drawn to the little strip of paving.

THE BLUE CARPET

Thomas Heatherwick, designer of the public square in Newcastle transformed an unloved space around the Laing Art Gallery.
'The Blue Carpet' introduces colour and a cohesive surface to a setting that contains a mix of building types and had no defining character. Laid across the square and 'riding up' against the gallery, the carpet draws the buildings together and creates an intimate open space for both performance and play. The surface has been peeled back to create benches and light voids, and the project incorporates an elegant laminated wooden spiral staircase. Was not as impressive as all the hype about it.
www.commissionsnorth.org

LAING GALLERY

ARTWORK BY YOKO ONO

"Put a photo of someone you love onto the canvas. Write a love message to someone you love onto the canvas. y.o."

These are the instructions from Yoko Ono to visitors to the Laing Art Gallery, who are being given the rare opportunity to contribute to a new work by the artist.

GRAND DESIGNS LONDON

Grand Designs is a show on channel 4, for anyone who has an interest in design, build, interiors, shopping and home wares, gardens, kitchens & bathrooms and innovation. Grand Designs Live London is now being held over 9 days at Excel from 3rd to 11th may 08. The exhibition will be televised on channel 4.

Excellent exhibition bursting with unique and exciting idea for homes. Some exhibitors put up brilliant displays resulting in large numbers of people flocking to stare at the products. Not a dull moment at this exhibition!

THINK 08



THE EVENT DEDICATED TO EXPLORING AND PROMOTING SUSTAINABILITY IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Think is an exhibition and conference about sustainability in the built environment. It tackles the issue at a strategic level across the value chain in the public, private and third sectors.The built environment accounts for about 50% of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions and it’s increasingly clear that we have to change the way we design, construct and use buildings – and do so fast. This means rethinking the whole process and taking a fresh look at what we mean by, and how we achieve, a sustainable built environment – from specifying low energy lighting to creating places where people really want to live and work. think.co.uk

Some companies had interesting exhibition arrangements with curious looking gadgets as part of their display. Company had a bicycle that would power a blender when peddling and make smoothies. I even had a go! The smoothies were then given to visitors who would stop by their stall.

CARDIFF BAY

Cardiff has a very calm quiet environment, especially the bay area. After being in the hustle and bustle of London, everyone ought to find Cardiff relaxing. The bay area has been transformed into a very contemporary space, with lots of activities for all age groups. The two main things that took me there were the National Assembly of Wales building and the Wales Millenium Centre.

MORE LONDON

Got off London Bridge station to find City Hall. Generally, the whole street leading to More London has been well set up and its a good example of mixing in the new with the old. The choice of material is fitting with the age of the place and some of the building.

More London suddenly hits you from the left. A vibrant contemporary business community in a central location. most of the area is pedestranized leaving lots of room for exhibitions and events that often take place there. I think it was the paving and lighting i loved most. maybe because my current project is mainly about the two or maybe the paving really is that great... Either way, beautiful contemporary space.

FESTIVE LIGHTS IN LONDON

Greater London was rather dull with christmas lights in 2007 however, some areas of central London, went all out once again. Since the discovery of fairy lights on trees, every single town center has had a set of trees with fairy lights. Although it looks beautiful, seeing this over and over and over again can take away from the experience making it seem boring.

Central London had fairy lights too, however, they put a twist to it. They were either a unique colour, or encoporated into a sculpture, or repeated in an interesting way. It was beautiful and i cant wait for this yrs display.

BOUTIQUE MONACO

A mass building accomodating residential, office, commercial and cultural activities located in the heart of the Seoul metropolitan life in South Korea.

Unlike the existing high-rises where one is segregated from the outside world as soon as they leave the ground floor, Boutique Monaco is a building where at each level will be a vertical open space accessible from different spots in the floor. The exterior, designed in an orthogonal pattern in the interest of efficiency in space allocation, is intended to strike a balanced harmony with the surrounding box-type high-rises.

Around 172 units are created in 49 different types and sizes and interconnected as if in an enormous puzzle. At the same time, different types of internal/external, private/public areas have been installed.

TOWERS IN THE PARK: BY MASS STUDIES

Towers in the park is a proposal that attempts to unite open space with buildings and buildings with open space. It is trying to solve the increasing problem of overpopulated areas within cities where finding abit of green space is difficult.

The towers in the park typology has been broadly applied in large cities across Asia, including Seoul, considered representative of superior quality open space while satisfying quantitative demands in these overpopulated areas. It consists of two very contrasting elements: the park represents a public space, while the rising towers are an accumulation of individual dwelling units and demarcated private space. Problematic in the engagement of these two static and seemingly opposing aspects is the lack of an intermediary space or structure that fosters the generation of spontaneous social interaction. Seoul Commune 2026 solves this problem by connecting and balancing the two elements (towers and park). The creation of interjunctions between interior/exterior and public/private space on a variety of scales accommodates variousresidential activities and facilitates spontaneous social interactions.

OUT OF THE ORDINARY: SPECTACULAR CRAFTS

ANNIE CATTRELL

Her work is about capturing moments in time. She is a sculptor and in this exhibition, she worked with glass. She produced beautiful glass sculptures with what looked like floating clouds trapped inside.

'' I choose the familiar, for example a cloud. so whatever language you speak, there is a kind of universal understanding. It is the transformation and freezing into three- dimentions of this iconographic subject matter that interests me: What happens when you contemplate something you think you know but shouldn't really be seeing this way. This 3 dimensional vantage point allows the viewer to examine the subtle shifts and rhythms which ceaselessly occur in the natural worl and within the body.'' Anne Cattrell