Newcastle East Quayside Masterplan, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
1991-1998

In 1991, on winning the commission to develop the Quayside, Terry Farrell and Partners set out to establish a new 'place' in Newcastle that would act as a framework for a phased mixed-use development. This has evolved and become the focal point of a rapidly changing quarter of Newcastle. The scheme reflects the site's historic use as a dock, whilst revitalising the Quayside.

The Quayside has an identity and character unique to Newcastle based on a sequence of landscaped squares and urban spaces along the river. The development makes this district an exceptional place to live and provides a first-class office environment, together with an exciting retail, leisure and public focus for the new Quarter; the layout and detail of the scheme forges links to all surrounding developments and neighbourhoods.

The masterplan for Newcastle Quayside provides a framework of urban spaces, pedestrian activity, vehicular and service circulation, services and other civil engineering infrastructure, together with urban design guidelines for the development of individual buildings which have been built to conform to this framework. The masterplan has proved to be sufficiently robust to allow for changes over time.

Central to the scheme is a major landscaped civic square, which provides a heart to the new Quarter and links retail and parking elements to the pedestrian route along the river. This pedestrian route passes through the whole of the scheme, intersecting several secondary urban spaces. The masterplan provides clear and legible pedestrian links throughout the site as well as enhancing the route along the river's edge. It also affords a permeable pedestrian network outside the site, thereby knitting itself in as an integral part of the city.

The masterplan transformed the industrial waterfront of Newcastle into a new commercial and cultural hub for the city. Its completion provided the impetus for the new pedestrian bridge across the river and the subsequent cultural regeneration of the Gateshead Quayside on the opposite side of the Tyne.

This project won the Civic Trust Urban Design Award and RTPI Spaces Award in 1998 and was awarded the 1999 British Urban Regeneration Award for Best Practice.