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SUMMER 2016
SHAPING PLACES
research + engagement news from the School of Architecture, Planning + Landscape
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Being Human/ Computational Colloids/ Pocket Park/ You Cant Move History/ PICH/ Rochester Roundhouse/ NEWCASTLE CITY FUTURES
Welcome This edition celebrates what a difference we can make when we work in partnership across a range of highly diverse, small and large scale, research projects. Newcastle City Futures which, as regular readers will remember, held a successful public facing exhibition two years ago, left an important legacy of new and strengthened relationships between Newcastle’s universities, local authorities, business, the third sector and communities. The partnership has built on this to win funding as one of five pilots working to identify not only opportunities for business and research, but for projects that will deliver better places and services for local people. On a smaller scale students and staff in the School working with the third sector, local authority and community groups were successful in winning government funds for a Pocket Park in Fenham. This project started life as a small piece of community engagement and a pop-up installation which demonstrated what might be possible in a previously unloved space. Similarly, partnership work in the remote Northumberland community of Rochester, has led to the building of a Roundhouse that will act as a cultural and educational hub. This project again developed out of long term dialogue and associated projects in Stonehaugh village and the Kielder campsite featured in previous editions of Shaping Places. Working in a four country partnership the PICH research group are considering the role of intangible heritage and how this might be understood and effectively managed. In Newcastle case studies focus on the Bigg Market, a place that figures in the youth narratives of many generations in our city; and the Ouseburn Valley, where urban change confronts a place with a fine built and natural environment but also a rich set of less tangible valued things. How can we collaboratively think and act in situations where new populations and new spaces of consumption are woven with a living past consisting of both built heritage, but also less tangible elements that might be valued by communities?
These concerns for intangible heritage drove our research into skating communities in London’s South Bank where colleagues helped make a case for the cultural significance of graffiti and skateboarding practices within the Undercroft. For the planners and the developers looking to redevelop this area, none of this intangible heritage was known or valued. Through the making of a film and community debates, discussions with heritage professionals are now underway to protect this space. Finally, the Computational Colloids project is a partnership between academic disciplines which will provide a fascinating window into a future when civil engineers may work with living organisms and our understanding of the designed environment may start at the molecular level. Bemused? Read on.
Rose Gilroy, Director of Engagement r.c.gilroy@ncl.ac.uk Geoff Vigar, Director of Research geoff.vigar@ncl.ac.uk
Public Lecture SeRies
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The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape’s Public Lecture Series, now in its seventh year, showcases inspiring writers, researchers and practitioners in the built environment and related fields. Lectures are free and open to all and our aim is to welcome people onto campus to inform, stimulate and engage them in current thinking on issues of societal and global concern. Details of our 2016-17 series, and recordings of previous lectures, can be found on our website: www.ncl.ac.uk/apl
Image credit/ Corbin Wood
Contents 01/ Public Lecture Series 02/ Being Human: Architectures of Hope and Fear 03/ Computational Colloids: Engineered bacteria as building material 04/ Pocket Park: Fenham Hall Drive Pocket Park 05/ You Can’t Move History. You Can Secure the Future Cover image Computational Colloids/ Carolina Ramirez Figueroa & Luis Hernan
06/ PICH: The impact of urban planning and governance reform on the historic built environment and intangible cultural heritage 07/ Rochester Roundhouse: Architecture students transform Brigantium roundhouse into community amphitheatre 08/ Newcastle City Futures 09/ Book Publications: Justice and Fairness 10/ PhD Completions
Being Human:
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Architectures of Hope and Fear The School has two projects programmed as part
The two related projects, under the umbrella theme
of the Being Human Festival 2016. Being Human
of Architectures of Hope and Fear, comprise an
is a national forum for public engagement with
exploration of how humanities research into historical,
humanities research. The festival highlights the ways
contemporary and future architectures reflect, and
in which the humanities can inspire and enrich our
make human, the emotions of hope and fear.
everyday lives, help us to understand ourselves, our relationships with others, and the challenges we face in a changing world.
Scaling the Heights 18–25 November Tyne Bridge North Tower
Exhibition of Mountains and Vertical Megastructures, including Everest Death Zone in Tyne Bridge’s rarely accessed North Tower. Led by Dr Katie Lloyd Thomas and School staff including James A Craig and Matt Ozga-Lawn, Josep-Maria Garcia Fuentes and Stephen Graham. Scaling the Heights is prompted by contemporary economic and social conditions driving cities and their inhabitants ever higher. Through a dramatic, filmic installation Everest Death Zone suspended in the vast, dark, vertical space of the Tyne Bridge’s north tower, a performance by the vertical urban explorer and photographer, Lucinda Grange, and bus tours of local artificial mountains and megastructures we will invite the public to experience the long history of the mesmerizing appeal of the mountainous and the associated endeavour and fear in reaching such precarious heights. A programme of Q&A-style public talks and the smallerscale exhibition in the Tower will further explore the physical construction of tall structures, artificial mountains and technologies of ascent; and their associated social hierarchies and inequities. The Being Human events close with Lucinda Grange’s performance and a talk and roundtable on the future of living vertical cities hosted by Professor of Cities Stephen Graham. Katie.Lloyd-Thomas@ncl.ac.uk
Maternity Tales: Listening to Birth Spaces Past and Present Thursday 24 and Friday 25 November Laing Gallery and Maternity Ward, Royal Victoria Infirmary Maternity Tales springs from research conducted by Dr Emma Cheatle on the impact of buildings and interiors on the history of English maternity. From the 1750s the incidental spaces of home birth were succeeded by the lying-in hospitals run by the new man-midwives. Across the nineteenth-century, birth was further medicalised and institutionalised in these purpose made spaces. Despite the long history of lying-in institutions, it was not until the 1950s that most women gave birth in hospital.
a. Images/ Left: Artificial mountain in the Budapest’s
Zoo, from Landform Building. Architecture’s New Terrain, Stan Allen, Marc McQuade (editors). Lars Müller’s Publishers and Princeton Architectural Press, 2011. Right: The Lying-in Hospital, from John Dobson, Newcastle architect 1787-1865, Tom Faulkner and Andrew Greg (Tyne and Wear Museums Service, 1987)
Maternity Tales Listening Booth is a small space designed by Dr Cheatle (loosely based on BBC Radio 4 and the British Library’s The Listening Project which collected and broadcast ordinary people’s thoughts and stories from around Britain) which invites public participants to both engage with and share research. In this case, the booth will be designed as a piece of furniture, based on a nineteenth century writing desk, with the addition of hinged screens to enclose it and form a small private space. The booth will display visual material on the historical spaces used for birth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and within drawers and cupboards there will be headphones for listening to short recorded podcasts. Prompted by questions on spatial qualities, facilities, rights, economics etc., participants will be invited to leave recordings or write letters on their own labour experiences. Emma.Cheatle@ncl.ac.uk
Scaling the Heights and Maternity Tales are funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; Newcastle University Humanities Research Institute; Architecture Research Collaborative and the School’s Engagement Fund.
Computational Colloids
Engineered bacteria as building material A multidisciplinary team, led by Reader in Design Computation in the School, Dr Martyn Dade-
03 Civil engineering with living organisms
Robertson, are investigating how civil engineering may be integrated with the emerging field of Synthetic
Where digital technologies were transformative in the 20th century, the 21st century is likely to be transformed through biotechnologies and fields such as Synthetic Biology.
Biology in order to define alternative models of engineering design and new types of manufacturing process. The project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), aims to show how to design a manufacturing process where the material itself acts as manufacturer and designer. The project team also includes:
The project attempts to bridge the gap between the design of biological systems at the molecular scale and
Professor Anil Wipat (Computing Science)
the design of material structures at the scale of the
Dr Helen Mitrani (Civil Engineering)
human built environment.
Dr Aurelie Guyet (Research Associate)
Javier Rodriguez Corral (PhD student)
Such a technology would push well beyond the current
from Newcastle University
state of the art and challenge a new generation of engineering designers to think at multiple scales from
Dr Meng Zhang (Microbiology)
molecular to the built environment and to anticipate
from Northumbria University
civil engineering with living organisms. Outputs of the project will include:
Imagine a column of sand saturated with billions of engineered bacteria cells. As a force is applied to the top of the column, bacteria in the sand detect an increase in pressure. The bacteria respond by synthesising a new biological material to bind the grains together and resisting the load. The resulting structure would consist of a material where sand grains are only cemented where the forces through the material require.
Image credit/ Carolina Ramirez Figueroa & Luis Hernan
Web based resources to share research findings
The development of an international network of academics and industry partners
A high profile public exhibition at the International Centre for Life in Newcastle to disseminate the research to a wider audience and instigate public debate
Pocket Park:
Building on the success of a DIY Streets project in Fenham, Newcastle, (see Shaping Places 3) a team from the School has supported Fenham Association of Residents in a successful bid for government funding to build a Pocket Park. The DIY Streets project in 2015 culminated with a temporary playful public space on Fenham Hall Drive for four days, giving members of the public and residents the opportunity to test the design proposal developed by the project. Out of this experience came the idea for the Pocket Park and Armelle Tardiveau and Daniel Mallo, Lecturers in Architecture in the School, worked with the community and Fenham Association of Residents to successfully bid for government funding.
Fenham Hall Drive Pocket Park
Pocket Parks are small areas of inviting public space providing a greener area and relief from the hustle and bustle of city streets.
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Images/ Daniel Mallo
The design, lead by Armelle Tardiveau and Daniel Mallo, is the result of a co-production process with the community and stakeholders throughout: these
The Pocket Park will provide something for
included Sustrans, Newcastle City Council, Fenham
everyone to enjoy with its environmental,
Community Pool, Your Homes Newcastle, Fenham
educational and social qualities.
Library and Fenham Model Allotment. It has been refreshing the way residents, The park was officially opened on 21 May by Sheriff
community groups and organisations have all
and Deputy Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Councillor Hazel
joined together to make this project happen;
Stephenson, at a public event.
and unite with a common goal of providing something extra special for the area. This
Situated between Fenham Library and Fenham
has been a real coup for Fenham. To have so
Community pool, the Pocket Park will provide a space
many prominent professional and academic
for people to spend time in the outdoor area and
representatives, from such places as Newcastle
connect with nature, in an otherwise harsh urban
University and Sustrans all pulling their
environment.
specialist skills together - to create a wonderful conversation piece that will add an extra
Comprising planters, a play space and seating and
dimension to the local community. It is forging
with trees providing homes for wildlife the project
invaluable working relationships that could
had a positive impact in engaging the local school,
prosper in years to come.
allotment holders, and local residents in looking after the area. Volunteers from the allotments and the local school will support the park to create wider educational activities.
Councillor Marion Talbot, Ward Councillor
You Can’t Move History. You Can Secure the Future London’s Southbank Undercroft is known as the
You Can’t Move History. You Can Secure the Future
birthplace of British skateboarding and has been
is a tag line used by the Long Live South Bank
home to skateboarders, BMX riders and graffiti
campaign to encapsulate their heritage claim aimed
artists for the past 40 years.
at retaining the skate spot in the Undercroft.
In 2013 The Southbank Centre unveiled plans to
The campaign provides the basis for an Arts and
transform the Undercroft skate spot into retail
Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded
units as part of a £120 million redevelopment. The
project which looks at young people’s attachment
Southbank planned to relocate the skate facility to a
to subcultural spaces (in this case the Undercroft)
new facility further down the river.
and the way these attachments are communicated to mainstream organisations such as heritage organisations, urban planners and the media.
The Southbank Centre’s proposed redevelopment site… has no history and lacks the unique, dynamic architecture that has made the Undercroft a globally renowned street culture space.
A multidisciplinary team comprising the University of Sussex, BrazenBrunch film makers, The Heritage Lottery Fund, and Lecturer in Town Planning Dr Dave Webb from the School, investigated
how young people understand their own cultural heritage
how they communicate their feelings
how formal institutions understand and act upon those messages.
Long Live South Bank The team hoped to learn how to promote a more plural understanding of heritage. Until now, the involvement of youth in heritage debates has typically been as part of a rhetorical strategy that attempts to speak for them as future stakeholders; as in ‘we are preserving the heritage for future generations’. The Long Live Southbank campaign, however, demonstrates young people as highly engaged political subjects capable of defining their own heritages as part of their own claims to urban space.
Image credit/ Katya Ochagavia
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CC Image courtesy of Hatters! on Flickr
Employing expertise across the fields of History, Town
The AHRC funded research project worked alongside
Planning, Media Studies and Sociology, the project
the Long Live Southbank campaign and provided
analysed the long-running and ongoing political,
independent interrogation of the authenticity of
economic and cultural struggles over the use and
claims produced by the campaign while supporting
significance of the Southbank site.
participants to express their own understanding of the importance of the Undercroft and its place within
The project team worked with the youth filmmaking
skate and youth culture.
collective Brazen Bunch to record walking interviews and oral histories with the campaign, Coin Street
The film helps to share those understandings
Community Builders and the Twentieth Century
and has begun to develop a conversation and a
Society. The team engaged with a range of other
debate with policy makers about their implications
stakeholders including BMX bikers, photographers
for how we consider heritage and the past as we
and graffiti artists.
simultaneously create cities of the future.
This material was analysed alongside Long Live Southbank campaign documents and films; official and alternative plans and planning documents; and print media and film archives. The footage was edited, with the Brazen Bunch filmmakers, into a short film: youthandheritage.com/you-can-t-move-history.html
PICH The impact of urban planning and governance reform on the historic built environment and intangible cultural heritage Global forces are fundamentally changing the way
Project partners in Newcastle are Newcastle City
our built heritage is managed. Neo-liberal ideology,
Council and The Ouseburn Trust who will contribute
economic crises, the risks from climate change
their knowledge and experience in relation to the
and a growing individualism and diversity in society
local case studies such as Bigg Market and Ouseburn
have fundamentally changed traditional planning
Valley.
methods. PICH aims to answer the following research This project aims to assess how these changes
questions:
have impacted on the historic built environment and intangible cultural heritage, particularly place
identity, in three settings:
How is the governance and planning of the historic built environment changing in response to external forces?
the historic urban core
sites of industrial transformation
heritage and the intangible cultural heritage,
landscape heritage
particularly place identity, considered in the
How are relationships between the physical built
governance of the urban heritage?
for the historic urban environment and the
PICH is a European Joint Programming Initiative
intangible cultural heritage, notably collective
(JPI) project which runs 2015-2018. It is led by TU Delft and undertaken with Università Iuav di
What are the consequences of governance reform
place identity?
How can policy makers and other stake-holders
Venezia in Italy and The Norwegian University of
best take account of place identity when planning
Science and Technology.
the physical transformation of cities, and with what tools? The research findings will contribute to academic and
With four countries and three thematic lines, the
practice debates and outputs from the project will
project covers 12 case studies, to be compared
include:
per theme and country. The project seeks to understand the relationship between the planning
and management of tangible and intangible heritage and place identity, and to explain how practice can
a research-based European text on urban planning, governance and cultural heritage
respond most effectively to promote more sustainable
policy briefings that will highlight lessons and potential actions
management of cultural heritage.
The project team comprises academics, policy makers
guidance and protocol for evaluating heritage and place identity
and representatives from civil society from Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK (Newcastle).
online learning tools for students and professionals
academic research papers in different disciplines
The Newcastle project team is Professors John Pendlebury and Geoff Vigar and Dr Loes Veldpaus.
Contact for more information: Loes.Veldpaus@ncl.ac.uk planningandheritage.wordpress.com
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CC Image Trondheim pixabay
Images/ Loes Veldpaus
Rochester RoundHOUSE This project in Rochester, located in the Redesdale
The site will become home to an open air
valley in Northumberland, is the third collaboration
amphitheatre and contemporary timber pavilion to
between architecture students and Kielder Art
be used for stargazing, musical performances and
and Architecture’s Testing Ground programme to
a range of community workshops.
create public facing architectural commissions and activities. This follows the success of a stargazing
The roof of the existing stone circle has been
pavilion at Stonehaugh and a warm room at Kielder
removed to turn it into an open-air space and local
campsite (Shaping Places 2 and 3).
craftsmen have worked with students to carry out repairs to the dry stone wall, before the addition of
The project responded to community consultation
new seating and flooring.
and residents’ wishes to reuse the dilapidated Brigantium roundhouse to create a community
The larch-clad timber pavilion is located next to the
resource.
stone circle and includes a sedum green roof. The
Architecture students transform Brigantium roundhouse into community amphitheatre
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pavilion and associated landscaped outdoor spaces will provide a multifunctional, bookable facility that will be managed by the community. It will also become a key performance venue for the annual Redefest folk music festival. Once again the project has been realised under guidance from Director of Architecture in the School, Professor Graham Farmer, whose research explores the connection between design practice, teaching and research through engagement with communities. QUOTE: “”.
I’m delighted that we’ve been able to continue our partnership work with the University students. Together we’re developing unique and publicly accessible structures that really bring to life one of the area’s best assets – its dark skies. Peter Sharpe (Kielder Art and Architecture, Curator)
Image credits/ Graham Farmer
This project has given the community in Redesdale a fantastic opportunity to discuss ideas for positive community events, workshops and stargazing evenings to take place at the rejuvenated roundhouse site. Local residents have been keen to get stuck in, working alongside Kielder Art & Architecture, students from Newcastle University’s School of Architecture and also volunteers from the University’s Students’ Union’s ‘Go Volunteer’ team, sharing skills, drystone walling, and working together to make this a new community resource for years to come.
Emma Kellie (Vice Chair of Rochester Village Hall)
Newcastle City Futures
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Image credit/ Alan Wallace
Newcastle City Futures (NCF) is a collaborative
Newcastle City Futures attempts to:
trans-disciplinary platform set up between government, universities, businesses and
relate existing and emerging research to policy making and user communities
communities to identify, promote and develop innovative projects in the city region.
Initiated through a ‘pop up’ exhibition and events
create a neutral space to allow innovation across disciplinary divides in higher education universities and the place in which they are located
series (see Shaping Places 2) the £1.2 million project has received £400k funding from Research Councils UK (RCUK) Innovate UK Urban Living
identify new research opportunities that benefit
assist in the design and delivery of projects that benefit citizens in the north east
Partnership with additional funding in kind from private, public and third sector partners.
The pilot phase of work will look to identify specific issues around three main ‘societal challenges’:
One of five RCUK funded UK pilots, Newcastle City
Ageing, Sustainability and Social Renewal and will
Futures is led by Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Professor
use digital technologies to add value to the projects
of Town Planning, drawing on future of cities
undertaken.
research conducted by him and his involvement in the government’s Foresight Future of Cities
Newcastle City Futures wants to hear from
programme.
businesses and community organisations across Newcastle and Gateshead who have innovative,
As a post-industrial urban area with more than
futures-facing ideas. NCF will work collaboratively
381,100 citizens, Newcastle and Gateshead form
to shape projects to make a difference to people, how
the heart of a contiguous urban conurbation of over
they live, and the place they call home.
1 million people. It is a region facing numerous challenges, and performs below average on
To find out more please contact:
a number of socio-economic factors such as
Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones
economic activity, educational attainment and
Mark.Tewdwr-Jones@ncl.ac.uk
health.
Book Publications
05 “For those interested in being able to discuss the just city with conceptual clarity in a globalized and urbanized world, this collection is essential reading.�
09 Justice and Fairness in the City Mark Davidson, Clark University Bristol: Policy Press, 2016 With more than half the world’s population now living in urban areas, ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’ within the city are key concepts in contemporary political debate. This book examines these concepts in theory and practice through a multidisciplinary collaboration, which draws on a wide range of expertise. By bringing diverse disciplinary and theoretical perspectives into conversation with each other to explore the (in)justices in the urban environment, education, mobility and participation, the book makes a significant contribution to our understanding of justice and fairness in and of the city. It will be a valuable resource for academic researchers and students across a range of disciplines including urban and environmental studies, geography, planning, education, ethics and politics. Simin Davoudi is Professor of Environmental Policy and Planning in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape and Associate Director of the Institute for Sustainability at Newcastle University. Her research interests lie at the interface of society and ecology and focus on questions of spatiality, governance, politics and justice, on which she has published widely. Derek Bell is Professor in Environmental Political Theory at Newcastle University. His main research interests lie at the intersection of environmental politics and analytical political philosophy. He has published widely on environmental justice and citizenship, and local and global climate justice.
PHD Successes 10 Congratulations to the following people, who successfully passed their PhD Viva Voce in 2015-16: MD ABDUR ROUF Evaluating Flood Control and Drainage Management Systems from a Productive Efficiency Perspective: a Case Study of the Southwest Coastal Zone of Bangladesh SOBIA AHMED KAKER Enclaves as Process: Space, Security and Violence in Karachi MABROUK ALSHELIBY Crisis of Traditional Identity in the Built Environment of the Saudi Cities. A Case Study: The Old City of Tabuk MOHAMED ELNABAWY MAHGOUB Assessment of Thermal and Visual Microclimate of Street Design in Traditional Commercial Spines in a Hot Arid Climates YOHANNES FIRZAL Reconstructing Socio-Cultural Identity: Malay Culture and Architecture in Pekanbaru, Indonesia AMIRA HASANEIN Feeling Comfortable Outdoors: A Phenomenological Understanding of Microclimate Perception in the Egyptian Context ANTONIUS KAREL MUKTIWIBOWO Appropriation and Control of Streets by Local Communities in Denpasar, Indonesia TUGCE SANLI Power Struggles in the Production of and Changing Perceptions over the Contemporary Public Space: an Insight Toward Experienced Reality DEVA SWASTO Evaluation of Walk-up Flats Delivery for Urban Low-Income People in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
CONTACT Anne Fry Events & Engagement Manager anne.fry@ncl.ac.uk Kim McCartney Research & Consultancy Manager kim.mccartney@ncl.ac.uk
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