Welcome to North Tyneside Council

House of Objects - Creative recycling

The Rising Sun Countryside Centre
Whitley Road
Benton
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE12 9SS

View a map of how to find us.

The House of Objects is an innovative new centre offering reclaimed, reusable and recycled materials to its users. The Centre promotes the concept of creative recycling, enabling a wide range of reclaimed materials to be revived through the imagination and creativity of their users. Training opportunities offered maximize the potential to achieve this. (See 'Related Documents')

As a local authority we take seriously our role in promoting the birth and growth of a different way of relating to the environment, supporting lifestyles and behavioural practices that show respect for the natural limits of our planet.

You can view a short video presentation of the pilot project here

The aims of the centre are

• To support creativity, design and technology in children's centres, schools and the wider community by providing the tools, resources and training opportunities that will foster new opportunities for creative expression.
• To support a new developing ideology concerning sustainable use of resources in a wider context. It will present an optimistic and proactive approach to environmental issues.

The vision and inspiration for the centre has been drawn from a model in the municipality of Reggio Emilia in northern Italy where the world famous preschools and city community use an imaginative and farsighted 'Remida Centre' to support thinking and creativity. This centre was established in December 1996. Just as Remida Reggio Emilia has, the House of Objects will present an ecological, ethical, aesthetic and economic challenge to our region.

The new centre in North Tyneside has the potential to open up new cultural perspectives within North Tyneside and will offer possibilities to those involved in education, (educators, parents, students and children), to artists and designers, to those involved in the production process, (industrialists and craftspeople), and to many others.

Similar centres have already opened internationally; in Denmark, Sweden, Australia and the US and there is enormous scope for networked activity in this area. The House of Objects is much more that a traditional 'scrap store' and offers a range of workshops and other opportunities to schools and community groups and is a hub for thinking and regeneration from which other initiatives in the arts and environmentalism could emerge.