At the end of November, Artichoke brought to Durham the second LUMIERE, a sensational festival of light featuring work by internationally acclaimed artists.

Over 150,000 people took to the streets to enjoy the 35 artworks that ranged from large-scale projections like Crown of Light which saw the Lindisfarne Gospels projected onto Durham Cathedral, to neons, to installations like I Love Durham,the giant snowdome that transformed the Market Place into a playground and Splash the most amazing illuminated waterfall off Ove Arup’s Kingsgate Bridge. Neons by Tracy Emin and Ron Hasledon adorned buildings in the city.

LUMIERE 2011 also included Lux Scientia, a collaboration with light festivals in Poland and Estonia, as well as four pieces created by artists from the North East.

There is now no doubt that a biennial festival of this kind has the potential to compete with the likes of the Venice Biennale and to endorse the region firmly on the international map of the visual arts.

In the same week of the Lumiere the winner of the Turner Prize was announced at BALTIC, the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Gateshead which had shown the works of the four shortlisted finalists, Karla Black, Martin Boyce, Hilary Lloyd, George Shaw from the end of October 2011.

This the first time the Turner Prize had been exhibited outside of London independently of the TATE.

Martin Boyce from Glasgow was very much a deserved winner with his atmospheric sculptural installations which feel very architectonic referencing design and the use of space rather like those works by Victor Pasmore and Alexander Calder.

(Of course Pasmore’s Pavilion at Peterlee in the north east has just been immaculately restored and well worth a visit).

Remarkable visitor numbers have been witnessed at BALTIC.

At just over the half way stage there had been 110,000 people through the doors compared to a total of 55,000 visitors to the 2010 Turner Prize at TATE Britain!

None of these numbers surprise Alan J Smith OBE, the Founding Chairman of BALTIC. Ten years ago many would never believe such stellar attractions would appear in the region. Well, maybe those disbelievers were from outside the region and had not considered that whilst the 20C reputation of north east England may well have been built on coal mining, steelworks and shipbuilding the fact is that the indigenous culture of the region is founded very much on the arts through the ABC of Christianity – all three inspirational Saints, Aidan Bede and Cuthbert hailing from Northumbria – and that this tradition still courses through the veins of its people contributing massively to the regional DNA.

However as part of ambitious plans for the regeneration of East Pilgrim Street, this historic structure is set to be demolished to make room for a new seven-storey tower which council leaders hope will form the flagship building in Newcastle’s new central business district. As experts in the field of urban regeneration, these plans have understandably captured redboxdesigngroup‘s attention.

This distinctive structure was once cherished alongside the Art Deco masterpieces of East Pilgrim Street like the Dex Garage and Odeon Cinema. The site now stands empty – festooned with graffiti, left to crumble, and even stripped of its copper pipes – a shell of its former grandeur.

The bulldozing of the site was indefinitely postponed earlier this year when experts realised the cost of removing the massive amount of concrete once used to envelop the bank’s gold bullion reserves may make the demolition financially unfeasible.

Now, global economic crisis, coupled with a lack of interest from any major private firms may mean plans for the area’s redevelopment, which included new shops, hotels and student accommodation, may never come to fruition.

Our mantra that Good design will always be good design seems salient here. Such a fantastic example of art-deco architecture should never be cast aside because it has been allowed to fall into disrepair? Perhaps the modern ‘out with the old, in with the new’ approach should be reconsidered before more of our architectural treasures are lost.

The pressure on those in charge to compete with other cities must be great, but why compete when you can lead the way? Why not be true pioneers of urban regeneration by embracing our more mature buildings, giving them facelifts rather than funerals? A certain dilapidated Post Office springs to mind here…

For more about the design please click here or go to www.theFA.com/St-Georges-Park

Those of us in the world of property may well claim to understand the RICS definitions of Gross Internal Space (GIA) or Gross External Space (GEA), at least we thought we did until the definitions were overturned by a judgement recently made in court following a dispute between Alan J Smith OBE and Northumberland Estates about the service charges applied to the Red Box Design Group offices in Newcastle.

Red Box Design Group’s service charges should be based upon the proportion of their Gross Internal Area to the overall Gross Internal Area of the whole mixed use development of which they are a part, as set out in the lease. However they recently discoveredthat the landlord has been charging service charges for several years calculated on the basis that their roof terrace and entrance courtyard werepart of the Gross Internal Area, and this formed the most central part of a dispute which was taken to court for resolution.

The complicated mixed-use project has many parallels with Red Box’s own offices in Newcastle upon Tyne, which were converted from the old Victorian Post Offices near Newcastle’s St Nicholas Cathedral, particularly in the way the design works with the most important historic elements to bring imaginative new uses to the building, breathing new life into the beautiful historic fabric, whilst at the same time removing later poor quality extensions to create a new landscaped inner city space.

The sensitive and potentially contentious restoration and redevelopment received planning approval in only 8 weeks from the date of the application, showing the value of suitable experience, proper consultation and sensible dialogue with the city planning officers and English Heritage in particular. More than anything else it reflects the pride, care and respect that we have for our native City of Newcastle upon Tyne and its historic urban fabric.

Original arcade discovered in Newcastle Co-operative Art Deco masterpiece.

redboxdesigngroup proposals for the restoration and conversion of the Newcastle Co-operative buildings on Newgate Street have been submitted for planning. The building has been empty for several years except for a small area at ground floor – the Co-op’s retained food hall. It is an iconic Art Deco design in Newcastle’s townscape designed by L.G. Ekins in 1932, but has become seriously at risk due to the lack of proper maintenance.

The project was initially won in competition in 2005 working for the Co-op and we have worked on many permutations of different uses over the interregnum. Merchant Place Developments were approached when the Co-op put the building on the market in 2009 and have now agreed terms with the Co-op.

The Red Box approach is built upon the hugely successful approach used at our own offices - the Red Box development, keeping what is of real value and stripping away many years of poor quality extensions at the rear to create new inner city spaces and the potential for some new construction.

The proposals include a 231 bedroom hotel, the Co-op foodhall retained and 5 other retail or restaurant uses at ground floor, with a gym in the basement, and all tenants but one have already committed to the scheme.

We have spent many hours researching the development to understand the design logic and get under its skin to allow us to design sensitively around the original fabric, assisted by the expertise of John Grundy, local historian, especially with his detailed knowledge of the history of the Co-op in the North-East. The site was developed over many years and several phases. The oldest remaining part of the building is in fact the 1902 red brick Edwardian building on St Andrew’s Street (formerly known as Darn Crook). It includes a number of mysterious elements, former grand stairs and spaces that have become unused and in some cases concealed.

redbox discovery

There is one remarkable discovery. We gradually became aware of a number of mysterious piers, not shown on original survey drawings and with little structural logic. Archive drawings showed a historic arcade that everyone assumed had been lost in the remodelling of the 1902 building at the time of the 1932 development. Creating small holes in the piers showed a number of beautiful ornate cast iron columns still in-situ – not quite Howard Carter’s Tutankhamun moment but quite special all the same! Further opening up has shown the whole structure to be intact. It will of course be retained as a central feature in the development, along with the grand stair that originally served it.

Some cities in the world grow from small settlements strategically placed for a wealth of natural resources or a particularly good trade route. Others find themselves the centre of a country in the fastest growing economy in the world; welcome to Chongqing – the city which displays the strapline ‘The largest city in the world that you have never heard of’.

Developing at a pace almost too quick for itself, the number of tower cranes alone as you approach the city centre tells you all you need to know; one can almost see the city growing before your eyes.

Since becoming a municipality Chongqing has an economic and political advantage over it’s rivals in Central Western China and yet the growth of Chongqing seems to have little negative effect on it’s neighbours similarly appetite to evolve and develop. They cannot all be winners but the Chinese are determined to build successful cities and economies in all of these locations and not to let one’s success be to the detriment of another.

The central business district of Chongqing has to be considered alongside those of London and Manhattan to see how far the city has come. What has taken New York and the City of London centuries to nurture has been constructed in around ten years. The aerial images of the three cities demonstrate clearly the density which has been achieved whilst the street patterns leave little to the imagination of the nature of the urban environments each city harbours. Chongqing somewhat wrestles with it’s topography and forces roads and new buildings into wherever it likes and ten storey retaining walls are not uncommon.

Meanwhile a population of over 28 million is helping to fuel it’s economic appetite whilst state spending on infrastructure projects is halving travel times from Chonging to other first and second tier cities in China.

Relatively unknown in the western world and with a population larger than Malaysia or Peru, Chongqing is a city unlikely to stay off the radar for much longer.

Whilst we hope that students will ‘come’ to architecture as a genuine vocation, the tuition fees debate has somewhat taken the exhilaration out of embarking on a university career, which will be very different from that experienced by architects in recent decades. This year, competition for university places is at its most fierce and only sweetened by being the last year under the current fee regime. Yet somehow, architecture still needs to call, attract and inspire the architects of tomorrow into following a path into a highly emotionally rewarding and engaging profession.

Speaking at the Royal Academy of Arts recently, Graham Boyce from redboxdesign group addressed A-level students doing exactly that; explaining to them “How to Become an Architect.” Students on the Royal Academy attRAact programme are given additional tutoring in art and design across a range of disciplines in and attempt to nurture them into a career in one of the many sectors of design, including architecture.

Graham used his own career to explain that architects not only design buildings but need to care about the kind of environments they create for the people who use them and the wider society at large, for whom we have a unique responsibility and meaningful duty of care.

Describing the day to day role and the skills required to be an architect the students also learnt about what kind of course they might be entering, certainly one of the most demanding to be taken at university. Having been involved with young and emerging architects and set up ‘The Social’ when he acted as a Co-opted Councillor at RIBA London, Graham has a broad view of how those entering the profession have found the situation in recent years.

Ensuring that students are enthused by the achievements of the profession and that they are given the best opportunities by higher education is the key securing the future of a profession of which we can be proud.

Leader of Gateshead Council, Mick Henry CBE and redboxdesign group chairman Alan J Smith OBE DL carried out a ‘topping out’ ceremony to formally mark the completion of the brand new building’s roof.

Leader of Gateshead Council, Mick Henry, said: “We’ve seen significant growth in creative industries over the last few years. The Northern Design Centre is a significant investment in Gateshead and will provide high quality space specifically designed to meet the pent up demand from creative industries. Within a very short space of time I’m confident that the Northern Design Centre is going to become a real hotbed of creativity that can make a big contribution to the region’s economy.”

Alan J Smith, the Chairman of redboxdesign group said “We hope that he Northern Design Centre is set to become the newest icon on the NewcastleGateshead skyline. This project provides a challenging brief – designing for designers – to create a very different kind of building which propotes the importance and understanding of design in North East England. It has to sit perfectly at the heart of the Baltic Business Quarter, and to extol the virtues of design in an innovative and fun way.”

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VIPs from Hunan Province were shown the practice’s award-winning headquarters by Chairman Alan J Smith who also hosted a special lunch in their honour.

Alan J Smith OBE, DL said: “China is the world’s fastest growing economy and there are clearly opportunities for North East firms to do business there. We have recently witnessed this at first hand.