Design Solution · Materials Science
Design Solution · Dream about it
Local slate tiles set on edge as the bridge deck.
The walking surface uses around 40,000 slate tiles hand-cut from a quarry three miles away and laid vertically on edge in steel trays, referencing the geology of the site. Local sourcing cuts transport and roots the bridge in its place. The on-edge laying gives a durable, slip-resistant deck.
Setting around 40,000 hand-cut slate tiles on edge in steel trays — sourced from a quarry three miles from the bridge — gives a deck surface that references its geology directly and cuts transport carbon, while the on-edge orientation provides load-bearing durability and a texture that resists slip. Local stone on infrastructure is not a new idea, but the specificity of the application — hand cutting, on-edge orientation, steel tray substrate — amounts to a bespoke construction detail that requires a reliable local supply and skilled cutting capacity. The honest question for transferability is quarry proximity: the logic only works where suitable stone is genuinely local, and the economics depend on quarry access, cutting labour rates and the scale of the deck area. This record carries claimed evidence only; there is no independent performance data on the long-term behaviour of on-edge slate tiles under pedestrian loading, freeze-thaw cycling or differential movement in the tray substrate, all of which a specifier on a new project would need to assess through material testing rather than drawing on this project's documentation.
#local materials #slate #decking