1 - 13 Janet Square, Byker Wall

Includes Nos. 1-13 Janet Square, Nos. 2-18 Janet Square and Nos. 187-205 Janet Square, with attached steps, ramps, walls and fences. Group of 46 houses and some flats arranged in terraces centred on a square. 1970-1 by Ralph Erskine's Arkitektkontor; site architect Vernon Gracie; structural engineer, White, Young and Partners; main contractor, Stanley Miller Ltd. Dark beige brick metric modular brick cladding to timber frame, with green and blue weatherboarding and cream eternit panels, monopitch metal roofs supported on plywood box beam purlins follow the line of the slope. Two and three storeys on steeply sloping site. The site is dominated by the pedestrian Janet Square itself, reached by low ground-floor entrance openings in the terraces. Timber windows in timber surrounds with aluminium opening lights (many sliding). Timber doors with glazed panel, many renewed in hardwood. All the houses have blue metal door hoods. Balconies with brown and blue timber balustrades supported on steel poles.

Janet Square is all two storey, although nos. 14-16 are flats, the upper one entered via external timber stair. Nos. 9-11 with green weatherboarding. Nos. 191-193 and 228-30 Kirk Street and 241-243 Janet Street are flats, the upper flat entered via external timber stair. 228-230 Kirk Street and nos. 9-13 (odd) and 18 Janet Square have green weatherboarding, with eaves panels of eternit. Nos. 201-205 Kirk Street are three-storey houses. First-floor flats with balconies on outer face, the outer faces all with brown and green fences, which with the steps and ramps through the square are an integral part of the composition.

Janet Square was the Pilot Scheme for the Byker redevelopment. In 1969 Ralph Erskine was recommended by the Housing Design and Programme Working Group to undertake responsibility for the Byker Redevelopment, initially to reappraise the proposals made by the Housing Architect's Department in March 1967. Working from their office in Brinkburn Street, Erskine and his team found 46 families who were prepared to be the `guinea pigs' for a pilot project on land already cleared between Kirk Street and Janet Street. The design was developed through a series of meetings with them in early 1970. Their preferences for semi-open plan ground floors and a pedestrianised square informed the design, and their experiences informed the rest of the low-rise housing, with its brighter colours, greater privacy of internal courtyards and provision of children's playspaces. Their chief involvement was in the detail of the design, down to the position of plug sockets (Housing Review) While Erskine and his office retained full design control of the scheme, this method of consulation with the actual families who were to live in the new housing was innovatory in 1970, and led to the continued system of operating a 'drop in' centre to disseminate information and hold meetings with prospective tenants and the city council thereafter. 'Erkine, in a masterbuilder role, has produced a strong, albeit informal, aesthetic of nooks, crannies and permutations of single house types' (Architects' Journal, 3 March 1976, p.418). For Erskine 'the Pilot Scheme has continued to have significance for both the Corporation and ourselves in our concern to see the new community that is springing up, work to the full potential that we believe its physical aspects are capable of fulfilling. ... It was a "one off" exercise, and we did not have the time and resources to continue the redevelopment along the same lines socially, although the design philosophy has grown and developed from those original houses' (Housing Review, pp.153-4).

Sources
Tyne and Wear Archives MD/NC/106/18
Housing Review, November-December 1974, p.149-56
Ralph Erskine's Arkitecktkontor, Summary of Architectural and Planning Aspects of the Byker Development, n.d. c.1976
Architects' Journal, 3 March 1976, pp.417-19
Ralph Erskine's Arkitektkontor, The Byker Redevelopment, n.d. c. 1981 LISTED GRADE 2*