Design Thesis Part 0 Project 2006 Callum Purdue Newcastle University | UK Robert Johnson:The project uses ambiguity throughout its inception and development - from the brief which seeks to provide a facility which embraces religious and secular objectives - to the site which allows no clear definition of its boundaries by virtue of its partially hidden character under the railway viaduct of Newcastle Central Station. The project builds upon this sliding start, via a series of seductive models and atmospheric drawings, working towards a building which has no spurious legibility, instead a labyrinthine quality of spatial interconnection, a composition which allows dark and light, open and closed, introversion and invitation, public and private.Peter Clash (tutor 1)Christopher Mark Williams-Jones:On a challenging urban site - trapped between railway viaduct and elevated motorway - the Dance Centre explores how movement occurs and is expressed, in both buildings and cities. The thesis is concerned as much with place making as with tectonics, and with resolving the constant preoccupation of urban design: how new uses can repair fractured links - reconnecting the city with the riverside; and how new public spaces function as settings for people and buildings. The building is a poetic assembly that captures and reflects, in every aspect of the design, the imagination, energy and joy of contemporary dance.Peter Walker (Tutor 2) Tutor(s)