Through the Gate

Situated in the heart of Newcastle, The Gate is a state-of-the art city centre leisure destination, developed and managed by Land Securities, provider of integrated commercial property and property related services.

The £75 million scheme comprises 19 330 m2 of leisure facilities and parking for 258 cars on a one hectare site. Spectacular features include a Sky Bar with views over the city and beyond, lighting that changes mood throughout the day and a streetscape to give an outdoors feel, at ambient temperature.

Land Securities has secured a vibrant range of occupiers. National brand restaurant and bar operators include Tiger Tiger, MA Potters, Ask and Pizza Hut, local operators Hide Bar and Beyond Bar and a 12-screen Odeon multiplex cinema. The Gate epitomises the reputation of Newcastle as not only one of the best places to enjoy nightlife, but the city with the highest leisure spend per capita in the UK.

The leisure centre is the single biggest investment in the Grainger Town regeneration area of Newcastle. Over the past six years Land Securities has worked closely with the Grainger Town Partnership, English Heritage, English Partnerships and Newcastle City Council, to assist them in meeting their regeneration objectives for this historic area of the city. The urban context of The Gate mainly consists of listed buildings and a mixture of popular retail centres, with some residential construction, and the unique experience that is Newcastle's Chinatown.

Standing out from the crowd
Even against this eclectic background, there is a stark contrast between these surroundings and the intense activity that is revealed by The Gate's huge glass wall on Newgate Street – the largest of its kind in Europe. Inside the 23 m high atrium, shiny stainless steel finishes, exposed building services installations and polished floors are rendered with moving projections and changing colour light, that enable the public from the outside to appreciate the excitement of the space during the long opening hours: from 10 in the morning until 2am the next day.

It is difficult to categorise The Gate, as it is uniquely different from any other retail/leisure venue in the UK. The mood within the space varies from gentle, calm and subdued in the morning to a throbbing night club type ambience at night, and all of this is happening in areas that in most streetscapes would be conventional circulation spaces given the most basic of treatments.

The key function of the lighting is to enhance the interior architecture and selected exterior areas by offering a palette of different lighting environments for the main three areas of the building: the Atrium, the Street and the Hub, which is the rear staircase and interior focal point of the building. All have different but co-ordinated lighting shows that create a stunning backdrop for the retail activity.

Conceptually, the lighting strategy for The Gate was originated as the enhancing element of the interior architecture. The spaces are rendered in various lighting scenes, including abstract sunrises, sunset and midnight scenarios. In addition, several lighting shows are programmed to happen at selected times of the day, which combined with music creates a 'smart discotheque' atmosphere. In the Street, an acoustic ceiling serves as a canvas to be washed by colour light of virtually any hue, while a gantry is shaped to suit the ceiling form and support equipment that projects light onto the surfaces and areas below. During early stages of the design, an abstract parasol with moving patterns of light was sketched and proposed to function as a feature inside the Street. In the atrium, the glass wall defines a space to be treated as a large-scale stage. Automated luminaires at high level illuminate the spaces below, including the pedestrian areas of the street outside the entrance. These luminaires provide dynamism that balances the lines of blue cold cathode that delineates the three stainless steel terraces.

As a linking element to all the lighting effects, there is a series of random lines of light along all the circulation spaces in order to define the views across the Street and Atrium, as well as to detract direct view to exposed building services. This is a cost-effective way of creating a high impact lighting element and this flow of lines of light also connects the lift lobbies in the Atrium to the Street and Hub. In the latter, a high-tech vortex of lighting effects, consisting mainly of light projections on floor and vertical surfaces, was designed to place a strong emphasis on views to the north end of the Street.

The Gate epitomises the reputation of Newcastle not only as one of the best places to enjoy nightlife, but as the city with the UK’s highest per capita leisure spend.

Centre stage
The lighting design has its feet firmly in the theatrical camp in terms of the techniques and equipment used, but the foundations on which it is built take their practicality from the technology of the architectural lighting market. The lighting environments are used to change the character of each space throughout the course of the day and night, adding a constant dynamic to the scenery, while co-ordination between other environmental inputs (such as video and audio) are possible through the main control system. This system enables the individual control of power and data (DMX) of all the luminaires in the installation and continuous recreation of the lighting scenes for the individual spaces.

Specifying the final lighting equipment was a long process that involved studying the luminaire performance; patterns gobos, colour filters, sleeves and lenses that would be suitable for both the application and the surrounding environment. Access for maintenance was a very important factor that determined the location of most of the equipment for the lighting at The Gate, as most of the installation needed to be checked and verified as frequently as every three months. This constituted an issue when the equipment had to be mounted 23 m above finished floor, and the solution relied on both the lamp life and the operating hours of such installation.

On the other hand, the whole installation is extremely efficient in terms of energy consumption. The specialist lighting in The Gate is a rare example of a theatrical lighting system entirely comprised by discharge and fluorescent light sources – both high efficiency sources, which result in full compliance with the Part L of Building Regulations.

The longevity of the lamps was important, as accessibility to the installation was restricted to short reach equipment. Most of the lamps are of ceramic metal halide type, which represents an average lamp life of 24 months, given the burning hours per day. Unlike a conventional theatre and entertainment installation, all dimming of high intensity discharge sources is achieved by mechanical means while standard 0-10 V dimming and DMX addressable ballasts are used to control the light output of fluorescent lamps.

State-of-the-art lighting equipment from the Italian manufacturer Clay-Paky was selected as the main component of the intelligent lighting system that delivers the 36 different lighting scenes. Most of these scenes were programmed to contain a collection of various lighting effects such as intense colour changes, gobo projections, random switching of lamps and subtle dimming. All of these individual effects are combined and programmed to reflect the themes and generic concept of the accompanying and sophisticated audio-visual installations in the Street and Atrium areas. The result is eye-catching colour changes across the whole ceiling above the Street, complimented by various effects provided by automated luminaires that change every 10 minutes. The changes are also related to the time of the day and area within the building. For example, the Atrium area is not provided with any specialist lighting effects until the control system sets them on at dusk. This progressive solar clock is integrated in the software that controls the scenes and serves as an energy saving for the installations that would not be appreciated during the daytime hours.

One of the most successful lighting effects takes place at the main entrance on Newgate Street, where a fast wave of colour is projected by multiple cold cathode lamps (twin red, green and blue lamps, each DMX addressable) installed onto the high level canopy. This part of the installation changes colour according to the time of the day and also according to the lighting scenes that occur in the Street, where the most impressive lighting happens. A starry sky gradually changes its background colour adding visual stimulation in the space, as the light is reflected back onto the circulation spaces and literally everything and everyone is rendered by these colours.

To add excitement to this environment, moving projections on the floor and rotating patterns of light are projected onto the canopies and escalators within the Street. The overall visual impression is certainly very dynamic, and that was what the client was expecting. Reflections were also a key element within the design intent and the shiny surfaces on the floor and vertical planes facilitate this on most of the areas of the scheme.

Moving on up
At the entrance of The Gate, on Newgate Street, moving light patterns are projected onto the pedestrian area of the Street at different times of the night and without disturbing or dazzling the vehicles in the traffic – something that Newcastle City Council specifically requested. These projections consist of logos of The Gate, rotated at different speeds, to grab the attention of passers by. Other effects include pulsating pools of colour light and whirlpools of colour. The light is projected through the glass wall, from the luminaires mounted at high level above the Atrium. This facilitates maintenance and avoids the use of a weatherproof fitting.