Robinson Landscape Design - University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne

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University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne

Client: University of Northumbria
Landscape Budget: £600k

Working with the architects RMJM, the practice developed the design for the external works for a new university campus at Coach Lane in Newcastle. This included the masterplanning and design of the main components to the external estate of the university: the location of the playing fields, gardens, main external street, two squares, courtyards and associated spaces. The result is an entirely new campus with a hierarchy of usable external spaces that links, across a local road, to an existing university facility.

The external works masterplan created a public face that, while containing the main car parking areas, also introduced a strong grid pattern hornbeam trees that soften and partially screen the impact of the new university buildings on the adjacent residential areas. All the traditional features of a university campus were introduced: so the main buildings sit within an estate that has playing fields and parkland, the latter having been given a dramatic backdrop of rising and falling hills to contain the site from adjacent houses. In keeping with European university design, the campus had a series of external courtyards along a main street that acted as the unifying spine to the development. At each end of the street, there was a public space. The scheme was a complex design and construction project, due to the sophistication of the building and the constraints of the site.