Clasper Village
Gateshead
Clasper Village is a family and children orientated place to live set above the south bank of the River Tyne and conceived to make the most of this relationship with river, the emerging Gateshead Riverside Park and proximity to the centres of both Gateshead and Newcastle.
Honouring the once famous rower Harry Clasper, this high quality housing was designed to be an extension to the park and the wider area. Promoting healthy lifestyles through the site layout and landscape design, Clasper Village was designed to give pedestrians priority with safe links to the surrounding area with attractive connections not only to local facilities but the Tyne Derwent Way, a 9-mile nature, culture and heritage route.
Working closely with Wayne and Tilly Hemingway, we wanted to offer children a safe space to roam and to develop their innate curiosity to explore and go from door step to tree branch and eventually continue exploring all along the Tyne Derwent Way.
As a place to live there is a large central ‘nature core’ with play areas, swales and a community green that are connected by a meandering path which leads directly into the Riverside Park. A series of accessible communal paths connect courtyards to one another to create a neighbourhood journey with each courtyard enclosed by sympathetically designed houses overlooking spaces to give passive surveillance and encourage interaction for toddlers, children, teenagers, the elderly and embedding the principles of Make Space for Girls.
“We shape spaces in the hope that they shape us”
Landscape lead Carwyn Thomas’ variation of a Winston Churchill quote
Overlooked and therefore safe,
Engaging and therefore used,
Inclusive and as such welcoming,
But mostly, designed to encourage interaction
- and as such create true community.
CLIENT Taylor Wimpey Homes TEAM P+HS Architects Hemingway Design STATUS Approved for planning LOCATION Gateshead
CLIENT Taylor Wimpey Homes TEAM P+HS Architects Hemingway Design STATUS Approved for planning LOCATION Gateshead
