Spa Garden Room Starts on Site

The construction of new spa at Rockliffe Hall, Darlington is underway.  The project is for a new Spa Garden Room with external hydropool and ‘spa’ hot tub type pool. The Garden Room itself houses a sauna, experience shower, tiled loungers, reclining beds and feature water and fire feature at the centre.  The official start on site was in January, with the steelwork arriving this week.

The scheme is due to complete this summer. Check out the images below of the curved-steel shell being erected by crane, and an artists impression of what the completed spa will look like:

Visit to Naughtone's factory

We recently visited Naughtone's factory in Huddersfield to view their fabulous furniture range in the flesh, confirm our selection decisions and choose fabric finishes for the breakout and meeting room furniture for the Blyth Workspace project.

OK, this actually happened just before Christmas, but the end result - the selected furniture - will be installed at Blyth Workspace this weekend!

Checkout Naughtone's full range at www.naughtone.com

Skyscraper City: Boho5 Middlesbrough

Click the link below to see a very complete record of site progress of the Boho 5 office development, Middlesbrough, as documented by a very enthusiastic writer on Skyscraper City!

www.skyscrapercity.com

Homes by the Sea

A house in Whitley Bay which we worked on will be featured on Homes by the Sea on More 4 this Thursday 9pm. For more information on the project you can also check out our website at http://www.xsitearchitecture.co.uk/portfolio/resi/the-links/index.htm

Lower Steenberg's Yard Consultation Event

A public exhibition and consulation event for the Lower Steenberg's Yard redevelopment is now on. You can check out the boards at the Toffee Factory, our reception here at Foundry Lane Studios and Ernest until Wednesday12th November. Alternatively, visit  www.ouseburn-dev.co.uk and click through to the Commonplace link to review the proposals and comment online. Online access will continue to be available after 12th November.

Design Junction

Today's xsite is Robin...

xsite has been involved in the design and construction of a stand showcasing North-East furniture designers for London's Design Junction event.

The event, taking place between the 18th and 21st September, is held in the former post Sorting Office on New Oxford Street, and presents a 'powerful line-up of renowned international brands, smaller cutting-edge labels, pop-up shops, large-scale installations, eateries, flash factories, seminars and screenings across three floors of the impressive 120,000 sq ft venue'.

The stand, designed and coordinated in conjunction with Design Event, features an internally illuminated cuboid plinth manufactured from Valchromat, and a series of boxes and mini plinths finished in matching blue to present the individual furniture and lighting pieces.

Construction took place yesterday, with the dressing occurring today ready for the opening tomorrow. We think it looks great, check it out if you happen to be in the area!

Visit: thedesignjunction.co.uk
www.design-event.co.uk

Ouseburn DIY Streets- Street Trial!

The DIY Streets team have been busy working on some design ideas for Stepney Road, Stepney Bank and Lime Street to improve pedestrian and cycle amenity in the Ouseburn. The Ouseburn Futures group manage this project, with lots of support from sustrans, Malings developer Igloo and local businesses xsite architecture, Roots And Wings and The Cycle Hub.

There is a street trial happening this Sunday as part of the Ouseburn festival consisting of temporary paint to the roadway to give an indication of the proposed interventions. Hopefully this will give everyone a good understanding of how the designs could work. There will be a further street trial for the one way street down Stepney Bank- stay tuned for further details on this.

Alongside the street trials DIY Streets will have a gazebo set up next to Seven Stories with presentation boards for the design- come on down and check it out. The designs are a work in progress so we would welcome any feedback you have on the proposals. Following the trials and community and business feedback, xsite will be working up final design proposals, to be delivered by the council by March 2015.

Ainsley Street Student Accommodation

Ainsley Street Student Accommodation, now known as The Village @ The Viaduct is really starting to take shape. The scaffold is now down on Block 3- here's some initial (unwashed) glimpses of the finished product.

DIY Streets for the Ouseburn

Today's xsite is Nita...

DIY Streets is an initiative by Sustrans that provides funding for communities who want to improve their local streets, with an emphasis on sustainable travel such as cycling, walking and public transport. xsite are helping facilitate DIY streets scheme for the Ouseburn Valley, alongside the Ouseburn Futures group. Newcastle City Council Highways department are also involved in the process, in order to ensure that any initiatives work in tandem with the Council’s own schemes for the valley. As a business based in the valley and general Ouseburn fans we’re delighted to be part of this process.

An initial workshop at Ernest and a survey of over 100 people and businesses in the area was conducted to determine what issues were most pressing and which streets most in need of improvement. From this there was a broad consensus that Lime Street, Stepney Bank, Stepney Road and Shieldfield Lane would be the most appropriate streets for a pilot DIY Streets scheme. Further open workshops to discuss these streets were advertised to local businesses via a flyer drop and social media.

xsite led 2 workshops with interested parties at the Ouseburn Farm on 19^th and 21^st of May this week, to establish a brief for the DIY Streets works. These consisted of a walk around the streets with the group followed by discussion in groups around plans of the streets with ideas and priorities noted.

There were loads of great ideas put forward at the workshops. xsite now have the task of distilling this into some design proposals for further consultation around mid June. For more information visit the Ouseburn Futures website at http://ouseburnfutures.org.uk/

Arborescent

Today's xsite is Neringa...

Last Saturday xsite were braving the wilderness.

The Arborescent project lead by the talented Ed Carter promised 3 unique musical performances in an extraordinary setting – Kielder forest. xsite were asked to compose one of the graphic scores – a visual piece of music that was yet to be invented by musicians playing glass percussion instruments, a tuba and a trumpet.

In our piece, we asked the audience to take part by wandering into the forest and reading the symbols left on trees to be deciphered according to one’s own reason. Such conscious meandering made for a strange exhibition of sound where music, sometimes resembling a distant sound of a wild predator, travelled closer and further as if trying to influence one’s reason.

The sound was moving and the venue was uncanny.

We couldn’t have asked for a more enjoyable cultural weekend out in nature and judging from great comments after the event – the participants felt the same.