Cladding complete on Waygood's West Elevation

Cladding on the west side of Waygood’s new building was completed in December. Made from a special Rheinsvink sheeting this oil finished cladding stops water entering the building on the side facing the Bigg Market.

Studio Artists visit their future studios!

Many of Waygood’s Studio Artists visited the new venue last week to see the transformation of the building and identify their individual studios. All stated how much they were looking forward to ‘being part of the city again.’

The Studio Artists said that they will appreciate the more convenient location, feeling safer leaving at night, better security and the wider creative facilities when they move to their studios in the new venue.

Glass put into place on Waygood.

The new glass panels on the stairwell have now been installed from top to bottom of the East elevation of the building, along with the external glass on the top floor viewing box, which will allow views over the city.

The Turning Point network of people from across visual arts strategy groups meet this week in the North East for their National Summit. Delegates will be invited on a special hard-hat tour of Waygood’s High Bridge site to see its progress into a major city centre cultural venue for visual arts.

Studios taking shape on High Bridge

Progress on the artists' studio floors are particularly noticeable on site at the moment. The studio doors and walls have been delivered and are being installed as the individual studios for artists on the third and fourth floors take shape.

The studios have now been allocated to current studio artists located at Harkers. Visits are being planned so artists can see their new studios.

Waygood featured on ITV's No Place like Home

Waygood was featured on ITV’s relocation programme, No Place Like Home yesterday. The programme follows artist and curator Alan Bowman who currently lives in Venice, and his family, as they decide whether to return to live and work in Newcastle or stay in Italy.

Alan and his family look at housing, schooling and job opportunities in Newcastle. Alan is shown round Waygood’s redevelopment of its city centre site and discusses his working experience and employment potential with Creative Director, Helen Smith. The family also visited BALTIC, Seven Stories and The Sage Gateshead.

Waygood is due to re-open its city centre cultural venue next year creating studio and gallery and social spaces for art and artists on Newcastle’s High Bridge.

The episode can be viewed online on ITV Player until 15 September 2009 (You may have to download software).

The structure of Waygood’s saw tooth glass roof on its top floor is now in place on the top floor. The glass panels are almost completely fitted on the roof now.

The building is being made watertight and the internal fit out will commence shortly.

The distinctive ridged structures of the roof can be seen to the left of the yellow crane from the top of Newcastle’s Monument.

Pillars restored to industrial finish

Waygood's High Bridge site has been covered as some of its internal pillars on are being shot-blasted to remove age old paint, clean them and return them to their original metal finish.

Waygood's Gallery roof structure put into place

The metal roof structures of the gallery are now in place and the distinctive saw tooth roof can be seen. Glass with UV filters to protect the art will be fitted and the galleries will be sealed within the next few weeks.

Waygood’s new distinctive scissor staircases installed.

Progress is continuing on Waygood’s building with the distinctive scissor staircases now installed and complete. Shown here with protective chipboard covering against the elements, the staircases join the two halves of the previous warehouses and will be the centre of the new redevelopment.

The staircases will be one of the main public accesses through the centre of the building, past the first floor commercial office space, two floors of artists’ studios and to the top floor public art galleries, viewing box and roof terrace. Each floor will be joined by four sets of staircases crossing on landings in the middle of each floor, meaning that there are 16 flights of stairs to be installed in total.

The concrete stairs are made in blocks of three or four steps by Ebor in Ripon and the concrete landings by Spancast in Bedlington. The stairs and landings are supported by structural steelwork, fabricated by Carmel in Darlington

The scissor staircase feature was designed by architects Jabornegg and Palffy to complete the centre of the horseshoe shaped building formerly the Wards print warehouse. They will form one of the architectural centrepieces of Waygood’s new building.

Passersby on High Bridge can follow the progress of the development of the building. Documentary photographs of the site taken by Katy Merrington, Debbie Bower and Sarah Bayliss are shown on the screens in the window of 31 High Bridge, from 10am to 10pm daily.

Filming the redevelopment

Katy Merrington and Debbie Bower spent a day in March filming with William Raban documenting the changes to Waygood’s building.

William Raban is a London-based filmmaker and a leading figure in his field. His particular interests lie in cities and the British landscape.

Waygood commissioned William to montor and create a film with Katy and Debbie that will capture this architectural transformation and provide a fascinating document to one of Newcastle’s most exciting regeneration projects, which will be shown as part of our re-opening programme.