Portfolio: Robert Burns Foundation & Housing In Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Part 1 Project 2001 Iain Orme Edinburgh College of Art | UK The portfolio presented covers both scales of project investigated during the schools’ 4th year. The projects are independent of each other although ideas can be developed through the projects.The Robert Burns Foundation is intended to be a place where the work of Burns, his peers and their contemporary equivalents can be promoted. townscape : geology : environmentGenerators gave rise to a diagram where the typology of the city exists in one direction and the typology of the parks and landscape exists in the other. The architecture seeks to reconfigure the earth giving the landscape back to the city with the extension of an existing park rising from figurative seismic shifts to meet and encompass the urban form.The housing in Newcastle-upon-Tyne is based upon analysis of the area in question: its’ history, relationships to city and surrounding districts, problems and remedies.Through research and understanding the problems that exist within and around Scotswood the proposals within the masterplan follow a series of moves that create the whole scheme.·The use of three linear parks that the housing can sit within with green linkages between, using the old buildings as anchors in the landscape.·The breaking up of Armstrong Road and creation of Armstrong Park to re-integrate North and South Scotswood.·The creation of a new Scotswood centre at its ‘natural’ heart at the top of a north-south spine running through the old heart.·The re-connection of Scotswood to the waterfront of the the Tyne.·The integration of new transport links to re-connect Scotswood back into the city structure.The generator of the diagram for the housing comes out of the need to understand the roles of public and private in the context of a double fronted building opening up questions of how the street, park and house interact.The work presented is intended to communicate to the forum the breadth of work, thought and insight undertaken in the process of designing for a variety of parameters. Iain’s work throughout his honours degree year was thoughtful, intelligent and well-considered. The housing in Scotswood, Newcastle, proposed an opportunity to re-invest in street architecture as a method of tying together the disparate pressures apparent in the existing situation. The resultant order given to the place was positive, and to some extent also made reference to historic type solutions. The mix of accommodation, the spacial layout inside and out, and the elevational treatment were all very sophisticated for a fourth year student’s work.The Robert Burns Foundation in Edinburgh Old Town represented a less formal solution, with its basis founded on the fragmented layered rock strata unusually apparent in the centre of any city. This idea was then developed along with a specific attitude to the making of a building and resulted in a highly articulated building which again displayed a sensitive solution to a difficult design problem of a large special building on a city edge site.