SDA 2022 Entries

• Landscape + Public Realm - The space around, between and within buildings that is publicly accessible, including streets, squares, parks and open spaces. These areas and settings support or facilitate public life and social interaction. 

The Rochester Bridge Trust made plans to celebrate the history of the crossing over the river Medway between Rochester and Strood. A crossing that has existed in this location since Roman times. The Trust has preserved and maintained the crossing since its foundations in 1399. The vision was to provide an area of active public realm on the Rochester Esplanade, adjacent to the current crossing by interpreting each of the bridges that have existed on this site.
Towards the end of the Rochester Bridge Refurbishment Project, work began to remodel the Trust-owned portion of Rochester Esplanade. Not quite a complete transformation, but the plan was to open up the footway area to make it a more inviting space for pedestrians.
The Trust was drawn to Hardscape (IP Surfaces sister company) for a number of reasons. As well as submitting a high-quality tender, Managing Director, Mathew Haslam, took a personal interest in the project and the Trust were particularly impressed by their ethical sourcing position.
Hardscape were contracted to fabricate and deliver nine benches, one of which measured 3.5m in length, for Rochester Esplanade, as well as two plaques and a series of footway studs to mark the Trust’s land boundaries and permissive paths.
IP Surfaces were keen to have a presence on site during installation. This was an attitude and responsibility greatly appreciated by the Trust.
The work itself was phased, beginning with the preparation of a recommendations report, reviewing the clients’ specifications, and advising on anything that could improve the final product. Once this was complete, a sample bench was delivered to the Esplanade which was subsequently reviewed by the Trust, Arcadis, and Designers’ Barker Langham. This enabled the client to have a real-time view of how the final product would look in its ultimate setting, giving the client the chance to change anything that wasn’t quite right.
Once the sample bench had been approved, IP Surfaces produced detailed fabricated drawings for the Trust’s approval, before commencing production of the full set of nine benches.
Several meetings with the IP Surfaces team and visits to their original facility at Long Marston, near Stratford-upon-Avon. These visits continued throughout the process, with a final visit to review the finished benches ahead of delivery and installation in Spring 2021.
Total cost of project £10m
Completed Spring 2021

IP Surfaces were appointed to complete the production of nine, each unique and bespoke, European granite benches and associated embellished elements together with a granite footway plaque and wall plaque. Having won the project via Tender process, Hardscape became the official partnered adviser and producer via their manufacturer IP Surfaces and set about making many test samples to trial various materials, finishes and techniques all of which were meticulous in design requiring thorough consultation and collaboration to fulfil a 12-month period of detailed design and production.

The complexity and intricacy in some of the techniques used throughout the process was an absolute testament to the skilled craftsmen and technology afforded within IP Surfaces. Detailed etching, exacting inlays of lettering, precision painting and trialling of materials such as brass set into an epoxy resin block and a cast bronze crest were all undertaken.

Rochester Bridge benches – 15 tco2

None to realise as attention to detail and a continued process of collaboration at each stage meant progress was made when all parties confided and worked through to solutions in production and onsite.

The journey allowed the client to gain complete satisfaction and confidence with the production process. This is very typical of how IP Surfaces approach and fulfil these types of in-depth projects.

As part of the Trust’s commitment to the local community a group of students from various colleges from the Rochester area undertook an educational visit to our facilities to see for themselves the incredible project in the making whilst listening to a presentation from MD, Mathew Haslam.