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Bespoke Paving Design for London's Riverlight Development

October 29, 2015

It's not every day you get to frame a work of art, so we were intrigued to provide bespoke paving for London's prestigious Riverlight development.

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'Skystation' sculpture by Peter Newman, with bespoke granite and basalt paving, at Berkeley Group's Riverlight London riverside development.
A Berkeley Group development, Riverlight is on the south bank of the Thames, near Battersea Power Station. Futurecity, experts in brokering relationships between developers and cultural institutions, were commissioned to deliver the installation of various artworks for the open spaces. Water and light are the guiding themes, and the aim is to encourage the passing public to interact with them.

Paving design for a public artwork

One of these artworks is Skystation by artist Peter Newman. The polished aluminium sculpture acts as public seating for twelve or so people, and is contoured to encourage users to lie back and contemplate the sky and architecture above them (and chat, as their heads are so close together). It needs to feel anchored in its space. It's also sure to draw plenty of passers-by, so it needs a hard-wearing, low-maintenance paving beneath. A circle was an obvious choice, as it centres the sculpture and echoes its shape. Blue Grey Granite and Black Basalt are an ideal colour choice to complement the stainless steel. A plus to these hard-wearing stones is that they are available with the same finish and texture. This means the different colour paving slabs unite well in a pattern and make a simple contrast of texture with the smooth sculpture.

Expert CNC stone cutting fulfils the brief

This isn't any old pattern, though. Skystation honours the riverside location in its design, and the interlocking triangular shapes of the paving slabs have been chosen to echo the rippling effect of light on the river.
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Technical drawings of the bespoke paving design for Skystation, at Berkeley Group's Riverlight development.
This is exactly the sort of pattern where our CNC machine and expert operator Piotr come into their own. As you can see in the drawing above, the paving is made up of five concentric circles of triangles, the shape of which progressively flattens from centre to edge. With skilful programming, Piotr ensured we got the pieces out of the least amount of stone necessary, to reduce wastage. Then we laid them out at the bespoke paving production centre in the proposed pattern (jigsaw enthusiasts, apply here) and numbered them. Although it looks as if many of the paving slabs are the same shape, there are actually 10 different variations of the triangle. This meant careful labelling was required before we sent them off to Scotscape, who laid the paving.

Be inspired

Choosing an unusual paving pattern is a simple way to create an extra-special design. Consult our Bespoke Stone Centre for options. Or, for a cost-effective alternative, think about creating your own design by combining paving with setts. Post updated: August 2023

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