Study Tour: Adventures in Northumberland

'To become completely lost is perhaps a rather rare experience for most people in the modern city'

Lynch

My trip to Newcastle mainly focused on my essay and gathering research for it. I want to use Kevin Lynch's text, The Image of the City. In it he talks about navigating the city and the imageability of the city as determined by 5 elements: paths, nodes, landmarks, districts and edges. As I hiker, I have developed my sense of navigation and since coming to Manchester, I enjoyed immersing myself in the city. The first thing I do when visiting a new city is to pick up a map. This time however I didn't. 
I wanted to map my way around Newcastle and use Lynch's methods to find my own way and to eventually be able to create my own map of the city. I want to then compare it to the actually city and see what the results are. 
After spending 4 days wandering around the city, I began to not only connect parts of the city together but I was also able to consider the geography of the city when doing it.

I visit Byker and the housing estate designed by Ralph Erskine. On arrival, I didn't actually realise how big it was and although I didn't see the whole estate, I wandered around to get a feel for the place. The Wall was built as a barrier against the noise from the metro and the busy road adjacent to it and while it achieves this, it also creates an intimidating façade. 
I felt that while there may be a strong sense of community within the estate, there didn't seem to be much connection to the surrounding town, despite having good connections by foot, bus and metro to not just Byker but the city as well.
I think I will be able to use Byker Estate as a comparison for my project.



Another thing I found on my travels were the street markets. These weren't markets in the traditional sense of a collection of stalls in a square either every day or one day a week, they were seemingly random stalls dotted about the city. The first I saw was on Northumberland Street, the main shopping road in Newcastle. The road itself was pedestrian only and this fruit and veg stall was sat in the middle of the street outside Superdrug. It was an unexpected sight. 
The second I saw was near the large shopping mall. Eldon Square is surrounded on three sides by the mall and next to one of the exits was another fruit and veg table. I would have walked straight past it had it not been for the owner shouting to passers by in an attempt to bring customers to the stall.