Live Works, the Quayside development by Newcastle’s Live Theatre, has been received a RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) National Award, following the North East Awards it has already won—a RIBA North East Regional Award, the RIBA North East Conservation Award and the RIBA North East Client of the Year Award—as well as being a Civic Trust Awards National Winner in March and being nominated for a British Construction Industry Award 2017.
The project was also shortlisted for the World Architecture Festival, RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) Awards North East and Constructing Excellence North East.
All national award winners will now be considered for the 2017 RIBA Stirling Prize, with the ceremony to be held at the RIBA headquarters in London later this year.
The Live Works building fills the gap in the façade of Newcastle's Quayside. It is a new office building with 14,920 sq ft of premium office space with superb river views and distinctive interior styles, finishes and lighting. Single occupancy of the building was taken by pioneering North East visualisation specialist ZeroLight, which delivers in-store and online visualisation solutions for automotive brands, in August 2016.
It completes a scheme which also includes the renovation of a converted Grade 2 listed almshouse as Live Tales, the first creative writing centre of its type for children in the region, and Live Garden, a public 'pocket park' and an outdoor performance space for Live Theatre, reopening and revitalising the only remaining Georgian courtyard in the city.
Jason Flanagan, Creative Director at Flanagan Lawrence, the project’s Lead Architects, said, “the Live Works project has provided us with a remarkable architectural opportunity to create a new courtyard for Live Theatre with the Children's Writing Centre and a new outdoor performance space for Live Theatre. The new building links the Quayside and the public garden with an arcade along Trinity Chare. The sandstone façade completes the gap in the river frontage which has been empty for more than a hundred years.”
The additional commercial income stream from letting the building enables Live Theatre to grow and sustain its work in the production of new plays, developing creative talent, education and participation. The rental income funds at least one play and education project each year. At the time the project was announced, in 2014, Peter Bazalgette, who at the time was chair of Arts Council England, described Live Theatre’s creative enterprises an example of "intelligent capital spending."
It joins the gastro pub The Broad Chare as an additional income stream for the theatre.