Staff Profile
Dr Sally Watson
ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow
- Email: sally.watson@ncl.ac.uk
- Address: School of Architecture Planning and Landscape
Henry Daysh Building
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
I am an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in urban planning and architecture. My research focuses on the relationship between ideas about children and the design and regulation of the built environment in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Specifically, I am interested in how urban environment professionals in postwar Britain navigated and translated into practice different types of knowledge about children, including social research, professional practice-based knowledge and lay knowledge, and how these were shaped by the politics of age, gender, class and race. I am particularly interested in how housing and public space has been designed to support or to deter children's play and mobility in the context of postwar citizen activism, housing politics and planning for the motor car.
My PhD, titled 'Housing Landscapes and the Politics of Play: From Parker Morris to Byker, c.1955-c.1995', examined the shifting relationship between ideas about children and their play and postwar housing layouts. My current ESRC Fellowship will build on this through researching the design and regulation of public space in 1980s and 1990s social housing in Newcastle.
Prior to starting my PhD, I worked in museums and architectural archives in Edinburgh, London and Newcastle.
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Articles
- Watson S. 'The freedom of the place during daylight hours': Urban renewal and the fight over play streets in Newcastle upon Tyne, c.1955-198. Planning Perspectives 2025, (ePub ahead of Print).
- Stenning A, Watson S. "Children see streets differently" Making space for children's play and mobility. IPPR Progressive Review 2025, 31(3), 169-255.
- Watson S, Fisch S. Power to all people? The 1969s fight for Byker. North East History Compendium 2024, 3, 85-96.
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Exhibitions
- Watson S, Fisch S. The Fight for Byker and Other Stories. 2025. Newcastle upon Tyne: Farrell Centre.
- Stenning A, Watson S. Women, Children and Play on Streets in How We Live Now: Making Spaces in the North East with Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative. 2022. Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle Contemporary Art.
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Review
- Watson S. Justin O'Connor, Culture is not an Industry: Reclaiming Art and Culture for the Common Good. Manchester University Press, 2024. 304pp. £85.00 hbk. £14.99 pbk. £14.99 eBook. Urban History 2025, 52(1), 230-231.