Fenham Pocket Park

In this post, Fenham Ward Councillor Marion Talbot reflects on her experience of working with the University and other partners to develop and build a Pocket Park in the heart of her ward.

The Pocket Park came about almost by accident!

Fenham ward, in the west end of Newcastle, had received some funding for a DIY Streets Project to involve local people in improving their streets and making the environment people, rather than car, focused.

The project was coordinated by Sustrans, working closely with Newcastle University’s Architecture, Planning and Landscape Department.

As ward councillors we were able to build relationships with lecturers from the School, particularly Armelle Tardiveau and Daniel Mallo, which gave us access to expertise, skills, knowledge and a degree of challenge, which was such an advantage and pretty unusual.  To be honest I didn’t know that academics got stuck in and got their hands dirty. Literally in this case!

Our joint discussions helped shape the consultation for the DIY Streets and ensured that residents played a significant role in the final design.

Many residents had commented that the library, swimming pool and doctors’ surgery on Fenham Hall Drive formed a community hub, but that there was nowhere to sit, wait for their kids, or just generally hang about. The temporary intervention, designed, built and installed by Armelle, Daniel and their students, proved very successful. It showed, better than a map or diagram could ever do, the way in which people could change their environment for the better.

There was not enough money to change the temporary to permanent, but we had a sense of what could be done if we could identify more funding.

Then DCLG announced funding for Pocket Parks and, in a fit of enthusiasm, we applied.

We were successful and awarded £15, 000, of which £10,000 was revenue and £5,000 capital. We were pretty excited…then reality kicked in.

The timescale was very challenging.  We had to produce plans, check land ownership, agree a steering group, design the park, source and cost materials and plants, find a project manager, build the park, produce and deliver a communication plan, all the while remaining calm and reassuring DCLG and local residents that we could deliver.

It was fraught and the budget was tight but we had planned for contingencies, the project manager was brilliant and the park opened on time on May 21st. It looks like an oasis in a sea of concrete and is really popular.

Pocket Park Opening

Pocket Park Opening

This Pocket Park not have happened without the relationships we had already built up over the 18 months we had spent working together on the DIY Streets Project. Those relationships built trust, joint commitment and a better understanding of what we were trying to do.

Ian, Karen and I, as councillors, really appreciated the practical implementation of the theoretical and had seen how that had already worked so well.

We could not have delivered this without the skills the University contributed.

Cllr Marion Talbot, Fenham Ward, Newcastle upon Tyne
Cllr Ian Tokell, Fenham Ward, Newcastle upon Tyne
Cllr Karen Kilgour, Fenham Ward, Newcastle upon Tyne

To find out more about how the Pocket Park was developed take a look at the Storify for #FenhamPocketPark

 

YES: Planning with Young People

It is often said amongst the planning profession that it is hard to explain exactly what town planning means.  During this last academic year, 15 undergraduate planning students at Newcastle University have been rising to that very challenge.

Volunteers for the YES Planning project have been learning how to discuss planning issues with young people, to help them understand the processes that change our planned environment, and to allow them to feel that their opinion about the environment is important.

In October 2015, Kevin Franks, from Youth Focus North East trained the student volunteers to work with young people using engagement and participatory techniques.

Building on the tried and tested planning activities that the YES Planning project had developed over the previous two years, this year’s volunteers have worked with around 100 young people in schools and youth councils on local planning issues.  Projects have included a controversial planning application for a hot food restaurant; town centre provision for young people; designing an eco-town; and research funded by the Catherine Cookson Foundation which has explored young people’s visions for Tyneside in 2030.

The sessions have been well received by the young people and their leaders.  As one youth leader explained:  “The sessions were centred around them and their future which is great; their opinions were really valued”.

Yes Planning

Yes Planning volunteers trialing their resources

The student volunteers have also enjoyed the experience of being involved in the project. One volunteer shared: “I enjoyed getting younger people involved in discussions around planning – and gaining their opinions on planning topics”.

YES Planning will continue during next academic year, offering young people in the region the chance to take part in exploratory planning projects relating to their local area; and for the student volunteers, an opportunity to develop skills of working with the community, which are after all, a large part of what being a town planner is about.

 

The Yes Planning project was initiated and directed by Teresa Strachan,
Lecturer in Town Planning in the School.

For more details please contact Teresa.Strachan@ncl.ac.uk.

Towards creative and integrated responses to demographic ageing in north east England

Professor of Ageing, Policy and Planning Rose Gilroy reports from the British Society of Gerontology (BSG) sponsored event held on May 26th at Newcastle University.

*

On a cold and miserable day in May more than 30 people from the University and the third and health sectors joined with older activists to consider how we can get more energy into our work on making the north east region more responsive to demographic ageing in a time of institutional and economic change.

Professor Tom Scharf from the University’s Institute of Health and Society set the scene in the first keynote.  He challenged us to consider what we mean when we say the phrase `age friendly places`. Are we talking about places that work for older people; that pay attention to inter-generational concerns, or that are dementia friendly? Can we really talk about any place as age friendly if people there have poorer life expectancy than the UK average? It was this demographic data that propelled Manchester to become an age friendly city. He suggested that inequalities need to be embedded into every age friendly vision and that every place, no matter how difficult the context, can make progress in some areas.

Prof Tom Scharf

Tom analysed both the Manchester and Galway examples of age friendly action, suggesting that the first was more bottom up while the latter represented a more top down approach with limited opportunities for the voice for older people. In conclusion he suggested that both responses can work but adopting a strategic approach helps and responses should involve all sectors. There is a need to strengthen the evidence base for developing age-friendly programme(s) and a reorientation of programme(s) required to ensure that the voice of a diverse population of older people is prioritised. More support is needed for older people who wish to become engaged in age-friendly initiatives and the Touchstone programme in Galway (and hopefully coming to Newcastle) is an example of this.

Following Tom, we heard from presenters who discussed place based approaches to ageing.

Patsy Healey and Jane Pannell of the Glendale Gateway Trust and Jane Field of the Bell View Service Centre talked about the way they had made alliances to both spread knowledge of their work, but also to lever in seed corn funding and influence key policy makers in Northumberland County Council. The problems facing all people, but particularly older people, in such a remote rural setting include extreme fragmentation of services and poor public transport which isolates people from services and support. Their goal was to develop a one stop shop to overcome this.

On a very different theme, Andy Ball from the Alzheimer’s Society talked about the need to develop a broad based approach to supporting people living with dementia to live as well as they can. Andy set out how the Society worked with a diversity of industry players, from supermarkets to the fire service, to develop a greater understanding of dementia in those organisations.

After lunch a session on service based approaches showcased Declan Baharini and Jonny Tull from the Tyneside Cinema who talked passionately about why the Cinema had engaged with dementia as an issue and developed the dementia friendly screening programme (funded by the Ballinger Trust).

A short film they shared with us showed older people living with dementia and their carers singing along and dancing in the aisles to the films in the pilot programme. An evaluation by attendees demonstrated unequivocally that, as an activity to share and enjoy, the pilot was hugely successful. A full programme has now been scheduled with regular screenings of films chosen by older people and their carers. A key message was to not be scared but to make a start!

Paul Hemphill of Age Inclusive talked about the need for businesses to confront the shift in working populations. He told us that an increasing number of cases on age discrimination are now coming to industrial tribunals and that good business leaders needed to be aware of the need for change and the key generational differences in their work place. Business must take action to prevent and manage chronic conditions and must adopt flexible practices in recognition of a greater proportion of employees who might be care givers for older relatives. There is a fundamental need for leadership and attitudinal change.

Our final keynote was Anna Round from IPPR who gave a data rich presentation on the ageing workforce – startling us with statistics on poor health in the north east and the implication for work, wealth and well-being in the face of extended working lives.

To what extent is there awareness of the needs of a growing body of older clients that older employees might serve more effectively? There is evidence that older workers exhibit high performance in jobs needing high levels of knowledge-based judgement, time-critical performance and social skills because mental characteristics such as reasoning, using experience, analysis and verbal skills strengthen with age. Contrary to popular myths, the productivity of older workers matches younger workers in ‘skill demanding’ and ‘speed demanding’ tasks. Anna argued that in the North East Combined Authority effective responses needed to consider the holistic impact of work and to liaise closely with employers, communities, skills providers and trades unions. There were interesting and workable models elsewhere in Europe such as Finland and the Netherlands.  The region needs to capitalise on the growth of older entrepreneurship by providing start up advice and more support.

BSG workshop

Following the presentations delegates broke into three discussion groups: demography and the economy; the role of civil society and age friendly place. To close the day, I asked the participants what issues they felt further seminars could tackle.

We closed with the following thoughts:

  • There is a need to consider inter-generational learning to create attitudinal change in society as well as real issues of intergenerational equity
  • We talk about design that works for older people working for everyone but what is the evidence for this?
  • What would new models of the life-course look like?
  • Current narratives of ageing focus on success and a glamourised image of the baby boomer – we need to acknowledge there are other narratives
  • Newcastle is a party city but who is invited? How do we diversify the cultural offer?
  • How do we address the issue of those who are ageing without children?
  • If the state is hollowing out what should be in its place?
  • What is the potential for bottom up solutions, particularly those led by older people?

By the end of the day we felt that there was both the energy and commitment to build a north east regional chapter of BSG with two events a year.

Watch this space for progress!

Rose GIlroy is Professor of Ageing, Policy & Planning at Newcastle University

Email: r.c.gilroy@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 7864

 

Digital Civics in the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape

In the School we’re developing new ideas about future forms of citizen participation in the built environment.

This theme is associated with the concept of ‘digital civics’ coined at Newcastle’s OpenLab. In conjunction with OpenLab and other departments around the University, the School is actively exploring the consequences of digital technologies for the built environment. One goal is to find forms of more relational citizen participation whereby the public sector moves from one of delivery of services to commissioning services.

But what is digital civics? How did it come to be? What are its drivers?   As a new area, nuanced answers are yet to be found. Projects so far involve a diverse number of motivations, such as overcoming the distance of ‘big data’ to everyday life, addressing collective ownership of data and urban infrastructure. Perhaps most importantly, digital civics addresses the rise of ‘issue-based’ civics, for example, on social media platforms. Through designing, prototyping, and testing digital interventions directly with end users in their everyday lives, digital civics encourages novel interactions between participants and their city.

Projects involving researchers from Newcastle University manifest all of these approaches in different combinations. Successful projects so far include:

  • PosterVote by Vasilis Vlachokyriakos and colleagues: a low cost in-street voting device.
  • FeedFinder by Madeline Balaam: a location-based service to support breastfeeding mothers find safe spaces.
  • AppMovement by Andrew Garbett: a vehicle for non-experts to propose and vote on apps they like to see developed.
  • Tenison Road project led by Microsoft Research in Cambridge involving Vasilis Vlachokyriakos which focused on developing a street-level archive to support and understand the meaning of data to a community on a very granular level.

Digital civics research is delivered through action and change. Representatives of digital civics have emphasised the importance of long-term partnerships on collaborative projects strongly embedded in local contexts. Some projects focused on bespoke devices for tactile interaction in everyday life. This comes with the idea of ‘ecosystems of data’ that embed data deep within the everyday. In digital civics projects, problem solving is often approached through technical innovation with modes such as issue-focused civic hackathons. Social entrepreneurship works as a driver to scale projects and agendas beyond single locations.

As part of the ongoing investment in innovation, innovative teaching, and preparation of a new cohort of architecture and planning professionals for the future, the School has set up a digital civics module, an exciting Stage 2 elective with a ‘challenge-based’ approach to teaching.

We are looking for external partners who would like to work with our students to address a particular challenge (for inspirations see https://scenarios.organicity.eu/).

Within a safe and set framework, guided by Dr Sebastian Weise, students will learn about essential computing technologies and user-centred design approaches and respond to your challenge with propositions of service concepts and technical prototypes.

For full details please see the digital civics call for project proposals (PDF: 2.54 MB).

 

Dr Sebastian Weise is Lecturer in Digital Civics in the School and can be contacted at sebastian.weise@ncl.ac.uk.

Rising Waters II: Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Fellowship Residency

From Rachel Armstrong, Professor of Experimental Architecture.

From the end of April to May this year, I am participating in the Rising Waters Confab II Fellowship Residency with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (RRF). This is the second year it has convened on site at Robert Rauschenberg’s studio and home on Captiva Island, Florida, USA, where he lived and worked for 40 years on 20 acres between the Gulf of Mexico and Pine Island Sound. The site is infused with an exceptional history, beauty and serenity and was converted into a multidisciplinary artists’ community in 2012. Today it has become a “ground zero” threshold for discussions that address one of the most crucial issues of our time and hosts over 70 artists and creative thinkers annually.

The emphasis of Rising Waters II is in keeping with RRF’s focus on environmental conservation and stewardship, which stems from Robert Rauschenberg’s longstanding concern for the safekeeping of the environment and the notion of individual responsibility. The residency embodies Rauschenberg’s innovative edge and cross-disciplinary approach to artistic expression and his fundamental belief that art can change the world.

Of course, low-lying landmasses, such as Captiva Island, will eventually become paradises that are lost to us through sea-level rises. Yet, in the meantime, such locations may also become laboratories for creative planning, and deployed as experimental platforms to address the first wave of rising waters worldwide. Curated by artist Buster Simpson, the residency aims to spark new thinking and influence civic action toward finding and spreading solutions to the rising waters of climate change.

Artificial soil image

Artificial soil produced by activated gel and soluble salts moving through the matrix to produce a self-organizing system of mineral deposition. Photograph taken at the Chemistry Outreach Laboratory, Newcastle University, 2015.

During the residency I will be working with a diverse array of artists and writers in a spirit of collaboration with artists, architects, landscape architects, marine biologists, environmentalists, authors, theologians, scientists, activists, advocates, philanthropists and island dwellers from the USA, UK and Trinidad. Together we will explore how we may work towards a phased adaptation response to climate change that is proportionate to humanity’s ability to reduce its consumption of natural resources and environmentally polluting practices.

Rising Waters II takes an open-ended approach to climate change, with collective discussions and collaborative projects. Visitors including engineers, activists and scientists are also hosted throughout the month to help inform the collaborative work. Personal research and investigations into the challenges are also encouraged and may take many forms such as agit props, performances, installations, the production of artifacts, or social investigations. My own work will draw from my research on living materials and experimental architecture that takes a visionary perspective of global challenges and explores new approaches through the iterative production of prototypes. For example, I will examine how artificial soils may reveal the self-organizing capabilities of organic matrixes through pattern making processes. I will also draw on field studies that I have conducted in the city of Venice, which has weathered sea level change over the last millennium, to examine how substances may be choreographed to produce new material spaces like reefs and islands.

As in the first Rising Waters Residency that was held in the spring of 2015, it is likely that the public outreach effort of this residency will continue long after the event has ended and that some of the concepts that arise from this study period will become catalysts for new projects and inform ongoing environmental actions elsewhere.

Rachel Armstrong is Professor of Experimental Architecture in the School and PI of the Horizon 2020 Living Architecture project.

She teaches onto the MSc in Experimental Architecture and Architecture Degrees in the School.

Reuniting Planning and Health

On Thursday 7 April Dr Tim Townshend chaired an event that was jointly the FUSE Quarterly Research Meeting and the 4th in the ESRC funded seminar series entitled Reuniting Planning and Health.  In this post he reflects on the day…

Reuniting Planning and Health was the culmination of quite a few months of preparation and though it’s not the first such event I’ve organised it’s always a bit nerve racking on the day.  Will all the speakers arrive? Will the participants enjoy themselves? Will lunch be any good?!  As it was I needn’t have worried about a thing.

The day kicked off with a great overarching review of the need for planners and health professionals to work more closely together from Laurence Carmichael, Head of WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Environments – showing that while there is a lot of momentum behind the initiative there is much work still to be done. We then went north of the border with a presentation from Etive Currie, Glasgow City Council, who has been working on healthy planning initiatives for many years.  Etive’s presentation was full of amusing anecdotes about how local communities are not always initially receptive to such ideas!   However there were also lots of really good news stories about individual lives that had been turned around. This was followed by Lee Parry-Williams, Public Health Wales, who gave a very informative overview of progress with HIA in Wales – and also some insights into how political rivalries can stand in the way of real progress!

After a short coffee break, we had three further keynotes, Prof Ashley Cooper, University of Bristol, gave an excellent presentation setting out the complexity of linking children’s activity patterns to the built environment – it clearly demonstrated that for planning to deliver environments that are more supportive to healthy lifestyles, the research behind interventions need to be extremely robust. Lesley Palmer, Chief Architect, Stirling University’s Dementia Services Development Centre, gave a really thought provoking presentation on how to design with dementia in mind – highlighting sufferers’ altered sense of reality – while showing elegant design solutions that could be incorporated into any environment that seeks to be age-friendly. The final presentation came from Gary Young, Director at Farrells, exploring the NHS Healthy Towns Initiative, including some of the initial housing at Bicester, a great talk to end with as it brought together so many key strands.

In the afternoon there were four interactive workshops: The Casino, a theatre based workshop run by local group Cap-a-Pie, explored how a proposed regeneration project for a run-down seaside resort might impact a local community by actually asking participants to step into the shoes of the community themselves.  An experimental methodology, it seemed extremely well received by those who took part. Jane Riley, Joanna Saunders and Carol Weir, a team based at Leeds Beckett University, gave a great workshop on the ‘total systems approach’ to obesity prevention – with participants asked to think about how they could make a real difference in their own work – quite a challenge! Douglas White of the Carnegie Trust did an excellent presentation on the Trust’s Place Standard tool – which I’m sure participants will be using in future projects. Finally Pete Wright’s team undertook a kind of speed dating event for participants to become familiar with various aspects of the MyPlace project based at Newcastle University’s OpenLab.

I was really impressed by how participants became quickly absorbed – all the workshops were clearly thoughtfully prepared and the feedback overwhelming positive – so my huge thanks to all the organisers.

All round it was a fantastic day and all ran very smoothly – thanks very much to Terry, Ann and Peter the FUSE support team for all their help! And to The Core – it’s an excellent venue.

Tim Townshend is Director of Planning and Urban Design and Deputy Head of School.

Ancient Cultures of Conceit Reloaded? A comparative look at the rise of metrics in higher education.

This post from our recently appointed Professor of Cities Roger Burrows first appeared on the LSE impact blog as part of a series on the Accelerated Academy.

In it he asks: have academics ever worked in an environment free from ‘measurement’?

A few years ago I wrote a paper for the Sociological Review – ‘Living with the H-index? Metric Assemblages in the Contemporary Academy’ – which made, I think, six points:

  • The emergence of a particular ‘structure of feeling’ amongst academics in the last few years has been closely associated with the ‘autonomisation’ of metric assemblages from auditing processes in the academy.
  • Whereas once metrics were simply part of auditing process and, as such, functioned to ensure accountability they have, in more recent times, taken on another role, and now function as part of a process of, what has been called ‘quantified control’.
  • In essence academic metric assemblages are at the cusp of being transformed from a set of measures able to mimic market processes to ones that are able to enact market processes.
  • In the neoliberal university world of student fees and ever-greater competition for student numbers and research grant income, these metrics function as a form of measure able to translate different forms of value.
  • Academic value is, essentially, becoming monetised, and as this happens academic values are becoming transformed.
  • This is the source of our discomfort. However, it is not just that we might have some political objections to these value transformations. The root of the issue if that we are fully implicated in their enactment.

The paper seemed to strike a chord. Copies were distributed well beyond the domain of my discipline and well beyond the shores of the UK. I received many emails from academics I have never met telling me how useful they had found the analysis; some even seemed to find it cathartic. Ironically, it quickly became one of my most highly cited papers. I was asked to speak to the analysis at a number of events and was even flown across to Australia to do a mini-lecture tour on the topic. You can hear me talking at one such event at the University of Sydney here (audio mp3).

However, one major objection to my analysis keeps coming up. Surely I am romanticising the world we have supposedly lost? Was it ever really the case that UK-based academics worked within an environment that was largely beyond ‘measure’? I have worked in the academy for more than 30 years now and can certainly recall such a time. Even when the first stirrings of the audit culture appeared the demands were pretty ‘light touch’. Those colleagues already gearing up for the next REF in 2021 and all the organisational paraphernalia that entails might find the requirements for the first such exercise in 1986 – what was then called the Research Selectivity Exercise (RSE) – enlightening?

Each subject area had to submit a ‘research profile’ of no more than 3 pages of A4 showing: indices of any financial support of staff; staff and research student numbers; any measures of research performance deemed significant; a statement of current and likely future research priorities; and the titles of no more than 5 books or articles produced since 1980 considered to be typical of the best research produced. Now just to be clear that is 5 books or articles FOR THE WHOLE DEPARTMENT! The ‘results’ published on the 27th May 1986, to very little interest or, indeed, understanding, classified the evidence presented in these 3 pages as: ‘outstanding’; ‘better than average’; ‘about average’; or ‘below average.

Of course one can point to any number of studies of the academy that demonstrate just what a different world it all was. As De Angelis and Harvie in their utterly superb 2009 paper, “Cognitive Capitalism” and the Rat-Race: How Capital Measures Immaterial Labour in British Universities published in Historical Materialism, observe, academic accounts of the life-world of the post-war University, as contained within studies such as Halsey’s Decline of Donnish Dominion and even Slaughter and Leslie’s Academic Capitalism, all concur that:

‘measure in any systematic form, with accompanying material consequences…[is]… new. Measure, as we would now recognise it, simply did not exist in the post-war university’.

Confirmation of this could come from any number of different sources but perhaps the most affecting is that contained within campus fiction. We are fortunate to have a wonderful book-length sociological analysis of this genre. Ian Carter’s Ancient Cultures of Conceit, published in 1990, examines the post-war campus novel up to 1988. The fictional life-worlds of the academy that it sets out to analyse are ones that many readers will not only recognise but also, perhaps, feel a guilty nostalgia for? The academic world described in The History Man (Bradbury, 1975) or Coming From Behind (Jacobson, 1983) will be familiar to many older readers. The impact of Thatcherism is brilliantly dissected not only by David Lodge in Small World (Lodge, 1984) and Nice Work (Lodge, 1988), but also in the volumes by sociologist-cum-novelist Frank Parkin such as Krippendorf’s Tribe (1985) and, especially, The Mind and Body Shop (1987).

Although published almost a decade after the Carter volume, the world of campus fiction caught up with the beginnings of metricisation with the publication of Overheads by Ann Oakley (1999) – another sociologist-cum-novelist. Much of this book is concerned with the tussle that the main protagonist, Professor Lydia Malinder, has with colleagues over the introduction of a new mechanism for workload allocation; the development of Teaching and Research Units (TRUs) as a crude attempt to reduce all aspects of the academic labour process to a common metric. Compared to the lived reality of the huge assemblage of various technologies of measurement to which we are now subject, the fictional battle over TRUs now appears somewhat inconsequential. However, it does provide a rough date from which concerns with the power of metrics are deemed significant enough to warrant comment in the sphere of fiction.

The metricisation of the UK academy is not a topic that has been sustained in more recent campus fiction. If one wants fictional insight to such matters one now has to turn to social media. The simply excellent Department of Omnishambles blog-  – is well worth a visit as are the ramblings of the (now retired it seems) @academicmale on Twitter. There are others as well that provide humour and not a little insight in to the current conditions of academic labour.

 

This post is based on the author’s contribution presented at Power, Acceleration and Metrics in Academic Life (2 – 4 December 2015, Prague) which was supported by Strategy AV21 – The Czech Academy of Sciences. Videocasts of the conference can be found on the Sociological Review.

Note: This article gives the views of the author and not the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape or Newcastle University.

Experimental Architecture: Primer

Here is a video produced by Stage 3 architecture students from Newcastle University exploring biological materials – specifically a material called Bacilla Subtilis partly made with bacterial spores which responds to humidity by expending or contracting.

We have tried to exploit this feature in order to create an actuated facade with the ability to open and close dependent on the humidity conditions of the environment surrounding the structure.

As part of the project the students went into the University Biology Labs to make and experiment with the material before designing their own prototype building panels which would be actuated by this biological material.

This project offers a unique opportunity for an architectural student. One to explore an area of the profession often saved for qualified research architects; the chance to integrate scientific knowledge with human designed systems. The advances in synthetic biology have yet to been combined with those in architecture.

This may not appear ground breaking at first glance but when we think that for centuries our architecture has had the purpose to protect from the outside elements, to be a barrier to the harsh environment that surrounds us, proposing that we can remove that boundary and in fact have a facade that will work with nature through nature itself is something that is very current in thinking.

We must remember that due to the technology being in its incubation period, we may not see the results that we wish for. However it is important to realise that through experimentation and failure, we will always be learning from these mistakes.

This innovative and unusual teaching studio is informed by cutting edge research in the field of experimental architecture.

Experimental Architecture is the name given to a new generation of living technologies, their application on architecture and environmental design and the examination of the point at which life and technology converge.

Dr Martyn Dade-Robertson (Degree Programme Director of the MSc Experimental Architecture) is Principal Investigator of Computational Colluids, a research project which investigates how Civil Engineering may be integrated with the emerging field of Synthetic Biology.  Combining these fields has potentially transformative implications for both and may generate a new field of Engineering Design.

Professor Rachel Armstrong is leading on a Horizon 2020 funded project Living Architecture.  This project plans to develop a programmable bioreactor able to extract valuable resources from waste water and air and to generate oxygen, proteins and fibre. Its possible installation in domestic, public and office settings will significantly improve the environmental performance of our living spaces with undeniable benefits for health, productivity and ecosystems.

 

The Future of Cities: Newcastle and Gateshead as a case study

This blog post is an amended version of the essay written by Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones for the programme for the Northern Stage production of Get Carter and his pre-show talk given on Thursday 25 February.

In this post he presents his original thoughts on Newcastle and Gateshead in the 1960s and explores how current city leaders are faced with a similar question: How do we want to live in the future?

Get Carter

The 1960s are often referred to as a pivotal time in Britain’s history and the decade saw profound changes in the North East. The older industries that had formed the mainstay of the region’s economy were dying; the closure of the Rising Sun Colliery in Wallsend in 1969 was the last pit on the north side of the Tyne, while six shipyards had already closed between 1960 and 1966.

But the spirit of change was underway too. T Dan Smith, Newcastle’s council leader for the first half of the 60s, embarked on a radical modernisation programme. Subsequently dubbed The Brasilia of the North, the plan was ambitious but reflected Smith’s determination to make Newcastle a world renowned 20th century city.

Smith revolutionised local government by introducing Britain’s first ever Chief Executive (in place of the Town Clerk) and Chief Planner (Mr, later Sir, Wilf Burns), and even Cabinet style government. Among the projects he set in place at this time were: the removal of remaining slum housing, the building of new flats, the development of a higher education campus in the city, the building of Britain’s first indoor shopping centre at Eldon Square, the construction of the Tyne and Wear Metro, the expansion of the airport at Woolsington, and the plans for the construction of the Central Motorway to remove traffic from the congested city centre. Traffic was so heavy on Northumberland Street, the main London to Edinburgh A1 road, that footbridges had to be built over the road to allow shoppers to cross safely from one side to the other. New towns were developed in Cramlington, Killingworth and Washington.

On the Gateshead side of the Tyne, change was no less dramatic, with significant road building schemes, the opening of the Tyne Tunnel in 1967, and new modernist designs for public buildings and housing. The construction of the 29 storey Derwent Tower in Dunstan, dubbed The Rocket, and the Trinity Square shopping centre and car park (made famous in the film version of Get Carter) in the late 60s, signalled the height of both planners’ and architects’ frivolity with the urban realm. The professionals treated the city as a machine but at the expense of the need for human scale and a sense of place.

Local architects and construction companies all benefited from the reconstruction and regeneration ethic. But some of it was too good to be true. The utopia, like Smith’s own career, didn’t live up to the hype: developers built quickly and cheaply, and were too ready to dispense with anything that smacked of an older age. And for most, the loss of coalmining and shipbuilding cast a long employment shadow.

Smith’s legacy is fiercely contested and whether you think he was a crook or an inspiration, few can argue that he held a vision for the future of his city.

Newcastle and Gateshead are, in common with other cities around the world, now looking to the future once again and asking vital questions about how our citizens are going to survive – and thrive – in a society facing challenges including climate change, economic austerity, global migration and an ageing demographic.

Universities are well placed to help cities address these questions and the national Foresight Future of Cities project developed a methodology in the Newcastle city region to bring together the intellectual capacity of universities and local stakeholders to identify and address future potential challenges and opportunities.  This methodology can be adopted by cities all over the world.

The resulting report, Newcastle City Futures 2065, is a broad and overarching look at the next 50 years using Newcastle city region as a pilot.  It aims to demonstrate that universities can work more proactively with and for the cities in which they are located, and use both creative techniques and their expertise to foster civic engagement and articulate a vision for the future of the city.

Mark Tewdwr-Jones is Professor of Town Planning and Director of Newcastle City Futures at Newcastle University.

 

MEP-Scientist Pairing Scheme

The MEP-Scientist Pairing Scheme aims at enhancing mutual understanding and establishing a long-term, intensive cooperation between Members of the European Parliamant and researchers.

Dr Carlos Calderon

Dr Carlos Calderon

Dr Carlos Calderon, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, reflects here on his experience of the scheme to date.

“I am writing this note after my “Brussels week” and I can now say that this has been a very worthwhile experience. Without a doubt I would encourage anyone to do it.

Although my hopes of being successful in the selection process were pretty low, I did apply. To my surprise, out of 326 applicants I was one of the 30 scientists selected to work with an MEP and was paired with Merja Kyllönen from Finland, a former Finish minister.

The idea of the scheme is that a scientist (me in this case) will shadow the work of an MEP over the course of a week in Brussels. As part of this I would learn how to successfully interact with the policy-making process, while the MEP gains awareness of scientific practices as well as a better understanding of the scientist’s point of view.

My initial expectations were low as I was sceptical about whether the shadowing would be for show or a true reflection of the MEP working day. My experience has been the latter. Merja sent information to help me understand the working mechanism of the Parliament, particularly how the committees work and how policy departments interact with committees and MEPs. Whilst this was useful background information, for me, the real value of the scheme is in the one to one interaction with the MEP and his/her team

In my view, Merja is fantastic. Above all, she is a great person with strong ethical values and with a great team to support her: Piia, Tina, and Helena. I am very grateful that she allowed me to share in her daily routine. During my shadowing, I witnessed how she interacted with lobbyists, industries, political groups and internal EP mechanisms. At EU level, policy-making manifests itself as either Regulations: directly applicable; Directives: binding on results; Decisions: binding on those to whom addressed; and Recommendations, opinions: declaratory instruments.

Regardless of the legislative instrument that comes out of the policy-making process, it is clear that there is a myriad of pressures and that skilful politicians will constructively engage with all groups whilst being true to his or her values. How do we, as scientists, engage with this process in the EP? Indeed, I do now have a better idea how to do it at a practical level. But, I have been pleasantly surprised by the EP willingness to engage with the scientific community so if this is relevant to your work, just get in touch with the EP and its members.

I work in the area of Urban Energy, a nascent field of scientific enquiry that sits across urban planning, energy, and ICT. The aim is to provide vital support for evidence-based policy approaches to sustainable urban energy infrastructure transitions in Cities. For my research, the interface between science and public policy is important. Whilst I do have a good working knowledge at a local level, my understanding of that interface at European Union (EU) level was pretty limited. So I was intrigued by the innovative nature of this scheme and the possibility of working closely with a politician.”

Dr Calderon is Degree Programme Director for the MSc and MRes in Urban Energy.