Gateshead Council's new regional performance centre at Gateshead International Stadium, opened by Lord Coe in May 2006, has built upon the experience gained from a series of five specialist English Institute for Sport complexes completed by FaulknerBrowns Architects in the last five years. Its integration with the Gateshead College Academy of Sport has resulted in a truly sustainable, vibrant hive of activity, in which sport and education are united, and where budding sportspersons and elite athletes rub shoulders together.