Ouse Street General Store

Today's xsite is Anna...

Ouse Street General Store has been open, at Ouse Street Arts Club, since last Friday, we have had a lot of people through the doors, sold quite a bit and enjoyed being shop keepers! We are still open all day today and 9-5pm on Saturday so if you haven't been along yet try and pop in!

 

Ouse Street General Store

Today's xsite is Anna...

We will be opening our events space Ouse Street Arts Club as ‘Ouse Street General Store’ from 11th – 20th October as part of Northern Design Festival, please make sure you pop by!

The corner shop, not just a place to pick up a pint of milk and The Chronicle, but a place central to our sense of community and our collective memory. Not just purveyors of essential provisions but a place to bump into neighbours, to pick up gossip and central to our sense of living somewhere.
Overshadowed by the supermarkets and seldom the first thought on a property developer’s mind the humble corner shop’s future is far from secure.

Ouse Street Arts Club sits at the heart of Newcastle’s Ouseburn Valley where an industrial past sits alongside a creative present and JCBs are preparing the ground for major residentially led regeneration with the aim of creating a sustainable urban village.

It is in this context that Ouse Street General Stores will open its doors for Northern Design Festival 2013.

Presenting curated shelves full of work from over 30 North East and national designers, artists and makers Ouse Street General Stores will be your local cultural 7-Eleven.  It’s ‘Open all hours’ meets ‘Etsy’ and you won’t go short of that pint of milk.

Opening Hours
11 – 20^th October 9am – 5pm
Preview Friday 11th 5.30-7.30pm
Closed Sundays

Ouseburn Festival - This weekend

Today's xsite is Anna...

This weekend sees the return of the Ouseburn Festival to the valley. There is loads going on all weekend, we will have our events space Ouse Street Arts Club open all day Sunday for coffee and cocktails from the Ouseburn Coffee Company, and the rest of Ouse Street will be packed with food and drink stalls from 11am - 5pm. Come along and feast on street food, bbq, pies, pickles, wines, cakes, veg, bread, cheese and loads more...

Elsewhere in the valley on the Sunday there are rides, boat trips, duck races, parades, tours, exhibitions, markets stalls, face painting and loads more...

'Snug' Pop Up Sewing Cafe

Today's xsite is Anna...

This weekend sees the next exciting event at our new venue Ouse Street Arts Club. 'Snug' Pop Up Sewing Cafe will be running all weekend serving up cake and coffee alongside sewing workshops each day. Pop along and have a look or book onto one of their classes via the details below...

facebook.com/snugsew

This Weekend...

 Today's xsite is Anna...

Fancy a cocktail down the arcade?

This weekend our new venue Ouse Street Arts Club will be transformed into a retro games arcade with a bar, cocktails from Ouseburn Coffee Company, music, food from Riley's Fish Shack, ping pong and leaderboards... Come down and have a go!

Ouse Street, Newcastle, NE1 2PF

The Late Shows

Today's xsite is Anna...

This year's Late Shows is just around the corner and we have some exciting plans a foot... We're transforming Ouse Street Arts Club into a 'Bar-cade'...

Visit our weekend amusement arcade, set up with games, new and old to watch and play over the course of the Late Shows. Our shipping container event space in the heart of Newcastle’s Ouseburn Valley will host this ‘Bar-cade’ for one weekend only; somewhere between a Social Club and a seaside amusement arcade, while away the evening with games, music, drinks...

Can you make it onto the Leader Board or get lucky in The Meat Raffle? Come down and say hi on the 17th and 18th May 7-11pm both evenings.

www.thelateshows.org.uk

ousestreetartsclub.wordpress.com

Victory in BIM Competition!

Today's xsite is Robin...

xsite were recently victorious in the Design and BIM competition North East Byker as part of the Summers Inman Team. This one day event involved five teams preparing fictional proposals for a Community Hub at the City Stadium, Byker.

Each team featured a full design group including Architects, Structural Engineers, Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, Project Managers, Cost Consultants and Contractors, as well as specialist advice on BIM software and data sharing systems.

Proposals were prepared in an intense collaborative environment using BIM (Building Information Modelling) software and using the tools available to coordinate and output a broad set of information about the design, structure, services, clash detection, costing, construction process and lifecycle costing.

Starting with a simple sketch design, our team developed a detailed model which included a full structural design, mechanical services, detailed costings and construction animation. Seven iterations of the model were prepared up to the 5pm deadline, and visualisations were prepared from the system to describe the proposals.

 

 

Ouse Street Arts Club

Today's xsite is Anna...

We're the the process of curating Ouse Street Arts Club full of exciting events for 2013. Last year saw an architectural Summer School, an Art Mart, a cinema, Grazer Supperclubs and a few different exhibitions.

Building on this for the coming year, we already have plans for a temporary games arcade as part of The Late Shows, a pop-up sewing cafe, more exciting Supperclubs, exhibition launches, The Northern Design Festival and Ouseburn Open Studios...

If you are interested in using the space for an event or exhibition please get in touch. 

You can email using anna@xsitearchitecture.co.uk or ousestartsclub@gmail.com

http://ousestreetartsclub.wordpress.com/

 

 

Open Studios 2012 as it happened...

Today's xsite is Anna...

Open studios has been and gone for another year and we for one had a brilliant time. We were open at Ouse Street Arts Club for the first time, instead of Foundry Lane Studios, and received about 750 visitors over the course of the weekend. A lot when you think that the space only holds about 30 people!

The work on show in our art-mini-mart looked amazing and the pocket cinema worked brilliantly with people hanging around to watch whole films. Our little wood burner kept us warm all weekend and made sure all visitors left with a slight wood smoke aroma!

Our new venue was incredibly well received and we look forward to a full programme of events over the next year. To keep up to date with what is going on you can check out the wordpress site here. Or get in touch if you are interested in using the space via OuseStArtsClub@gmail.com

Ouseburn Open Studios 2012

Today's xsite is Anna...

We're taking part in the Ouseburn Open Studios again this year, but instead of opening Foundry Lane Studios we will be at the newly complete Ouse Street Arts Club.

Ouse Street Arts Club is our brand new creative venue occupying two converted shipping containers in the Lower Ouseburn on Ouse Street, tucked in next to the Victoria Tunnel entrance. For the ever busy Ouseburn Open Studios we are putting on an ‘Art-Mini-Mart’ with amazing stuff to see and buy from the likes of Prefab, Amy Dover, Muro Buro, Jill Tate, Laura Sheldon and Bubblegum Vegas

Come along and visit our ‘Pocket Cinema’ with an array of short films being shown all weekend... There will be music, food from The Grazer Supperclub and drinks including the finest indie coffee from Ouseburn Coffee Company for you to enjoy around our hand built woodburner keeping us all warm!

Prefab have prints for sale framed and unframed, Amy Dover has beautiful illustrations, cards and ceramics for sale and Jill Tate will be selling her photography as cards and prints. Muro Buro has amazing ‘skull’ prints in gold silver and bronze... Laura Sheldon has prints, t-shirts, cards, badge/sticker packs and ceramic decals for sale too, as well as jewellery from Bubblegum Vegas.

We'll be hanging out there all weekend, so pop down and say hi, have a look our new space, have some lunch and buy some Christmas presents...

As well as ourselves Mushroom Works, Northern Print, 36 Lime Street, The Biscuit Factory, Biscuit Tin Studios and Colbalt Studios will be open all weekend, as well as the Toffee Factory who are playing host to the British by Design pop-up shop. A free shuttle bus will be running between all of the venues as well as to the Baltic and the Sage.

To see more about Ouse Streets Arts Club click here....

and more about Ouseburn Open Studios here...

archiGRAD Summer School Presentation

Today's xsite is Anna ...

We have come to the end of our archiGRAD Summer School here at xsite. The Summer School was a pilot Newcastle University project, developed in partnership with Northern Architecture that provided office based experience for architecture students. Adam, Emily, Kristina, Marta, Oleg and Rumen have been with us for 6 weeks working on a project master planning the High Bridge area of Newcastle.

Last week saw their final presentation of ideas take place in our new Ouse Street venue the Ouse Street Arts Club. They ran through a host of impressive ideas for the route from Central Station through Pudding Chare and along High Bridge to Pilgrim Street, including cinemas, light shows, parks and artwork.

We hope that fruits of their labour can get wider exposure with people in the city. It was a great for us to have them around for the summer, and for the students to gain valuable office experience. The pilot scheme seems to have been a success all round so we look forward to next year...

The Ouseburn Social Rerun

Today's xsite is Tim...

It seems like an age away but our first attempt at an Ouseburn Social was on the same night as ‘Stormy Thursday’ and ended up very wet!

So we are holding a second first event, on 20^th September 2012 at Foundry Lane Studios once again. Come along, meet your neighbours, exchange creative ideas, chat, that kind of stuff...

Please get in touch if you're interested in coming along via gail@xsitearchitecture.co.uk. Be great to see you here.

Click flyer to enlarge...

Ouseburn Social #01

Today's xsite is Anna...

We're having a little get together tonight for commercial creative businesses in the Ouseburn, come along if that is you...

Foundry Lane Studios, Foundry Lane, NE6 1LH
6 - 9pm

RIBA awards

Today's xsite is Adrian...

xsite’s Toffee Factory project was a winner again last night, this time at the RIBA North awards ceremony. The building ‘scooped’ 3 prizes ; an RIBA award, a Sustainability award and North East Building of the year.

Thanks and congratulations to everyone involved in the project which now finds itself on the (very) long list for The Stirling Prize.     

The Late Shows

Today's xsite is Adrian...

Three of our recent projects threw open their doors for this year's Late Shows last weekend.

The Toffee Factory hosted a vintage late night tea party with entertainment from Lady Koo and The Kooky Kitchen while the Cycle Hub, a new social enterprise promoting all things cycling, have taken over the former regeneration centre on Spillers Quay and were offering a preview of their social space. Finally xsite opened the doors to work in progress at Ouse Street Arts Club our self developed, container housed event space in the Lower Ouseburn.

Despite the failure of Spring or Summer to turn up lots of glow stick carrying folk did, with the Toffee Factory swamped by over 2000 visitors.