FaulknerBrowns architects

The FaulknerBrowns 'Material Change' Masters studio at Newcastle University recently concluded its 6^th year, led by Senior Associate Daniel Burn, lecturer and curator Peter Sharpe and Professor of Architecture Graham Farmer.

Our studio brief for 2023-24 was based around South Tyneside’s National Trust sites, with the purpose of understanding and developing an architectural intervention that responds to the trust’s stated aim of looking after “nature, beauty and history for all to enjoy”.

Students in their first year of the MArch course (Stage 5) worked within the town of Washington, a context in which the industrial infrastructure of 43 coal mines was overlaid onto existing landscapes and settlements and then itself replaced by the establishment of an entire New Town in 1964.

Students were challenged to analyse, understand, and respond to these different layers of history and to propose new architectural interventions within the heritage setting of Washington Old Hall. The Hall is known as the ancestral home of the first President of the United States of America, George Washington and has been preserved by the National Trust as a monument to that connection. In reality, the history of the Hall is far more complex and interesting than this singular narrative.

Students in their second year of the MArch course (Stage 6) were given the opportunity to select their own site and to develop their own design thesis in response to one of the seven National Trust properties within South Tyneside.

Each resulting thesis has been prepared in response to a social, cultural or industrial heritage, an existing building, a landscape setting, or an ecological context. Several projects work within the boundaries of a particular property, but each project explores a wider urban or landscape connection or a broader social context.

Alongside individual design projects, the group have worked collectively on a proposal for a ‘live build’ project in the form of a welcome pavilion at Washington Old Hall. A feasibility report has been prepared and designs will be developed towards a planning application and a live build.

All of the students’ work will be on display at Newcastle’s annual Degree Show, until the 24^th of June.