Last month saw us leave our Heworth Hall home of over a decade and move in to our new Pipewell Quay HQ. Renovated by Adderstone Group from the bones of the legendary Baja Beach Club, Pipewell Quay sits on the Gateshead Quayside overlooking the River Tyne.
This move has given us the opportunity to embed who we are throughout the building to show everyone who enters what Aspire is all about. As you walk through Pipewell Quay you’ll find our values displayed loud and proud. We want all of our visitors to know what we stand for and who we are.
When decorating our seven meeting rooms, we realised we had an opportunity to honour key figures from the North East and the history of tech. Although we provide services to organisations across the country, our roots are very much set in the North East and we’re proud of where we’re from.
Ground Floor:
- Armstrong: Lord William Armstrong, born in Newcastle, is most famous for his development of a hydraulic system enabling the Newcastle Swing Bridge and the London Tower Bridge. Ahead of his time, Armstrong was an early environmentalist; his home in Cragside was the first house in the world to be lit by electric light – powered by hydroelectricity.
- Barbour: Dame Margaret Barbour inherited J. Barbour & Sons in 1968. She later established the Women’s Fund with Community Fund. The fund encourages women in Tyne & Wear and Northumberland to achieve their full potential, particularly those who have faced adversity. As part of this, an annual Women in Philanthropy network event is attended by 300 female business leaders from across the North East.
- Cookson: Dame Catherine Cookson is one of Tyneside’s best-selling authors. She published almost 100 books and sold over 100 million copies which were translated into more than 20 languages. She established The Catherine Cookson Trust for medical research and academic work and gave away hundreds of thousands of pounds to local charities.
First Floor:
- Parsons: Sir Charles Parsons, is best known for his invention of the steam turbine. He founded C. A. Parsons and Company, an engineering firm which was once one of the largest employers on Tyneside. Rachel Parsons was the daughter of Charles. Rachel was one of the first women to study Mechanical Sciences at Cambridge University. She was one of the founders of the Women’s Engineering Society and was central to the employment and training of women in engineering roles in Tyneside.
- Stephenson: George Stephenson, born in Wylam, Northumberland, is known as the “Father of Railways”. He developed the ‘Rocket’, an early locomotive, and pioneered rail transport and the development of the first passenger railways.
- Swan: Sir Joseph Swan, born in Sunderland, is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the person responsible for developing the first incandescent lights used to illuminate homes and public buildings, including the Savoy Theatre, London.
Second Floor:
- Berners-Lee: Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee is best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He devised and implemented the first Web browser and Web server. He was named in Time magazine’s list of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century and has received a number of other accolades for his invention.
- Turing: Alan Turing was an English mathematician and computer scientist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science. He is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence.
- Somerville: Mary Somerville was a Scottish scientist and mathematician. She was the first woman author whose experimental physics papers were published in Philosophical Transactions, at a time when women’s participation in STEM was discouraged. She was an advocate for women’s education and women’s rights and was the first person to sign the 1866 women’s suffrage petition, becoming known as the Queen of Science.
To find out more about our new brand and headquarters, click here!
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