Description

Urban context

Right next to the center of Newcastle, the entire district of Byker, with a
population of twelve thousand, was redesigned. Because of poor construction and
low living standards, the existing row houses were successively demolished and
their residents moved to the new development being created. Citizens took part
in the planning. The urban planning model proposed two fundamentally different
building types: first, a slab structure nearly a kilometer long, running along
the highway to the north, providing protection from noise, and integrating
various existing public buildings that were worthy of preservation, thus also
ensuring a significant part of the building fabric was available right at the
beginning of the gradual restructuring; second, an adjacent protected courtyard
development.

Ground-floor zone

This undulating line of buildings up to nine stories tall follows the terrain as
it descends to the southwest. The linear structure is set away from the highway.
Thanks to its curving form and the different modulations of the terrain,
spatially framed, green transitional zones are formed on either side of the
collective wall. They mediate between the northern access road parallel to the
highway and the public paths, entrance areas, and front gardens or garden zones
of the ground-floor maisonettes. Small passages through the “residential wall,”
which is placed against the highway like a protective wall, lead into the
interior of the development. The front doors of the ground–floor maisonettes
are located on the north side. Each of these apartments has a small garden to
the south. Closed-off lobbies and interior stairwells represent the point of
departure for the vertically constructed residential neighborhood in the
south.

Building structure

Byker Wall translates the principle of the row house development into a vertical
structure; in the process, the access galleries take over the function of
neighborhood streets. Apart from the units on the ground floor, all 620
maisonette apartments are accessed via a path system that branches across
various floors. At regular intervals, stairwells and elevators link the
two-meter-wide “streets in the air,” connecting them to the adjacent building to
the south and leading back to the ground-floor level. Plaza-like expansions are
created at the points of intersection. The entrances to the apartments are
grouped in pairs and set back from the access gallery. Integrated benches and
planters create informal entrance zones for the apartments. The entry level has
the kitchen, living room, and dining room; the second level the private
rooms.

Facade

The two sides of the megastructure are designed completely differently: a largely
closed facade achieves hermetic compactness toward the north and functions as a
protective boundary line. Bastion-like structures in front resemble an inhabited
fortress structure – an effect that is reinforced by the sparse fenestration.
The north side, which receives little natural light, houses only the kitchens,
bathrooms, and storage areas. That effect is countered by the southern facade,
which is largely open. The rhythmic sequence of openings, veranda-like
structures in front, and projecting access corridors gives the megastructure a
neighborhood scale. The system of access galleries creates a precise sequence of
layers of public, semipublic, and private spaces.

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Originally published in: Ulrike Wietzorrek, Housing+: On Thresholds, Transitions, and Transparencies, Birkhäuser, 2014.