project: 

West Yorkshire

architect: 

Ares Landscape Architects

clay pavers: 

Terrestre

Vande Moortel’s Septima Terrestre was used extensively on the hard landscaping to this new project at Huddersfield University’s Learning and Leisure Centre on their City Centre Campus.

The University’s brief was to provide a new public space and improve the student experience requiring a natural material which would sit comfortably between the historic waterside built in Yorkstone, a material having a major history within the town. The same material also needed to sit alongside the new contemporary building of their new multi million pound development.

The landscape designer, Ares Landscape Architects of Sheffield, not only required a durable material to provide an attractive open space for students, but also needed to provide a paved surface for deliveries to the campus.

This pavement surface was also required to provide a permeable solution providing both types of surface without compromising aesthetics.

Two different methods of flexible construction using the Septima Terrestre clay paver was designed by Ares Landscape Architects. The traditional method of laying clay pavers laid on a sharp sand bed with fine dried silica sand to fill the joints provided an impermeable surface which was constructed alongside a permeable surface which consisted of coarse graded aggregate as a bedding and jointing medium.

Surface water run-off from the impermeable section of clay paving was directed towards the permeable sections of clay paving providing the drainage for the entire paved area.