Saltwell and Bensham Masterplan, Gateshead, UK

Gateshead is known for its ambitious development such as the Sage, and the Baltic. The next phase is a wider regeneration of the Gateshead area. 2500 homes are to be built over 19 sites over the next ten years. Three key locations were developed further with Studio Woodroffe Papa responsible for Saltwell and Bensham,

Saltwell and Bensham is an established, inner-city, Victorian neighbourhood, characterised by streets of two-storey brick terraced houses on a southwest-facing slope. Its streets and terraces are a familiar urban form that is ideal for the social regeneration and the consolidation of a sustainable community. There is little wrong with Saltwell and Bensham’s basic urban form of rigid city blocks, but the way those blocks are occupied – the buildings on them, the uses to which they are put – does not optimise the opportunities they could offer for social life and access to shops, amenities and transport. This is the basis for the area’s transformation into a newly sustainable and highly desirable neighborhood within a newly imagined Gateshead.
The core of the design offer will enable more mixed communities to exist by providing more flexible accommodation within and around existing housing and new spaces, reflecting accelerating demographic change, creating a more generous and higher quality public realm.


Street of Tyneside flats

Existing rear Of Saltwell Road

Typical Streetscape With Tyneside Flats

Proposed Streetscape With Variety Of Homes, Integrated Landscape And Rich Public Realm



Proposed new public squares and gardens

Typical street elevation



Balcony House
Shuffle House
Portico House


New houses after completion
Saltwell and Bensham Masterplan, Gateshead, UK
Client
Evolution Gateshead (partnership between Home and Galliford Try)
Programme
Masterplan for 258 units, Community Gallery + 3 Artist’s Studios
Site area
7.8 ha
Design team
Studio Woodroffe Papa, Studio Egrets West, Alison Brooks Architects