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Medal Winner 2005

Collingwood's Vessel: A Retirement Home for Elderly Fishermen, Bigg Market, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Part 1 Project 2005
Luke Pearson
Joseph Earley
 Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL) | UK
The scheme is a retirement home for elderly fishermen that also houses a working men's club for members of Newcastle’s fishing community. As a reflection of the separation and torpor of this unique society, the scheme takes the notion of the ship in an architectural context to create an ersatz environment which interacts with the city around it as if it were a dry docked vessel. The environmental technologies and the ways in which the notional ship has been translated into an architectural system are the focus of this study.


Luke's witty yet sensitive response to local problems of redundancy and an aging population are manifest in a ship-like structure that has seemingly become docked in an abandoned gap in the city. The hull, deck and cabins relate metaphorically to that of the merchant vessel but Luke's distinct architectural style and adaptation of fishing and shipping technologies are worked to provide a comfortable and familiar environment for the elderly.
Tutor(s)
Ms Laura Allen
Mr Mark Smout
2005
Syntactical Investigations into the ship as a "dry-docked" architecture.
The decks of the vessel.
Views from the Hold. The Sitting Room and an elderly resident's Cabin.
Views from the Hold. The Morgue and views of Gangways and Rat-runs.
Articulations of the deck within Newcastle. Moments from the trawler emerge and view Newcastle as an ocean.
A heated superstructure. As the trawler freezes so the vessel is warmed.
Sou' Westers and Leads on deck, blowing in the wind. The Sou' Westers ventilate the hold below, while the moving leads light below deck in the impression of the ship at sea.
The Deck by day manifests itself as a series of profiles and devices. At night the Deck becomes a series of light patterns and codings recognisable to those who sail the seas.
The Boating Lake is a microcosmic ocean upon deck whereby the memory pathways of the elderly are kept open through the associations of miniature boats on a tiny sea.
Artificial horizons present both the deck and the air space of Newcastle as a pair of seas, viewed as if from the Crows Nest.
Plan of The Hold
Plan of The Deck
Short Section through Collingwood's Vessel
Long Section through Collingwood's Vessel
An Alephographic drawing. Inspired by Borges the alephographic drawing sees everything revealing the technologies and notorieties that exist within the Vessel.
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