Member Article

Newcastle?s Toffee Factory gains RTPI Main Award 2012

Toffee Factory was awarded a Main Award at the Royal Town Planning Institute’s (RTPI) North East regional award ceremony held on Friday 5 October at the Centre for Life, Newcastle.

The Toffee Factory was one of two 2012 Main Award winners with the judges praising the redevelopment of the former sweet factory, located in the Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne.

In their awards report the judges said:

“It is a tremendous achievement by Newcastle City Council, their architects, and partners, that the complex now forms a flagship project housing a successful cluster of creative businesses and contributing much to the dramatic multi-level townscape of the area. The project also has excellent environmental credentials, makes good use of colour contrasted with the old brickwork, and a striking lighting scheme.“

The annual RTPI North East regional awards scheme recognises, celebrates and publicises good planning practice in the North East of England. They are primarily planning awards, focussing on the role of planners and good planning.

The North East RTPI Judges Panel added:

“This year’s winners, and many of the other entries, demonstrate the value of vision to good planning practice: the added value provided by high aspirations, which turn good projects into outstanding projects; the creativity which inspires truly memorable schemes.“

Tim Bailey, project architecture of xsite Architecture who collected the award for the Toffee Factory, said:

“Relationships in the production of a building extend outside just the client and design teams and winning an RTPI Regional Award this year is recognition of the contribution the planning system and Planners can make to achieving successful and well liked buildings. We are very pleased to be part of that delivery team and look forward to the continued high quality development of the Ouseburn.“

Lisa Tolan, Toffee Factory Centre Manager said:

“We are delighted to receive one of the Main Awards from RTPI North East recognising the Toffee Factory as an excellent example of planning and to receive praise for all the partners in the project from the judges. This is the third major industry award ceremony in the North East in which Toffee Factory has received awards and commendation for its successful redevelopment.“

Toffee Factory has won a sweep of regional awards in its first year of opening including the Project of the Year, Regeneration and highly commended in Design and Innovation and Commercial categories in the North East Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Renaissance Awards in April 2012 and goes forward to be considered for the RICS National Awards in late October 2012.

Toffee Factory also gained 3 awards in the RIBA Northern Awards in June 2012; the RIBA North East Sustainable Building of the Year and RIBA North East Building of the Year, and building architects xsite Architecture received one of 58 National RIBA Awards for their redevelopment of the Toffee Factory building.

Toffee Factory provides creative and digital studio space for growing businesses. Its contemporary office spaces opened in December 2011 in the refurbished Maynards Toffee Factory located at the mouth of the Ouseburn Valley. The development cost £6m financed by the European Union’s ERDF Competitiveness Programme 2007-13, regional development agency One North East through Single Programme and Newcastle City Council. Toffee Factory is owned by Newcastle City Council and operated by multi-award winning company Creative Space Management.

For more information see www.toffeefactory.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Cait Read .