Clinker Cladding

The original design was to clad the bridge in a double skin - one on the inside and the other on the outside of the balustrade uprights. The choice of construction method was to follow that used on my steam-bent seats, clinker. The client was originally a little unsure of the double skin as it might make the bridge look too heavy and intrusive in the classic garden. I had already splayed out the uprights away from their previous vertical positions, either side of the centre. This gave the structure a much stronger sense of movement and growth - it looked and felt right. I wanted this characteristic to be more evident in the final design. I called on the immediate assistance of the client to agree with my lead on the matter and then we had to decide whether or not to have the clinker on the inside or the outside of the uprights. The inside it was to be!



I ordered up some hardboard and cut it into the same widths as the cladding boards. I was to use this as a template to show us where the cladding was likely to end. I wanted a dramatic sweep starting at 900mm and ending at 1400mm at the end of the bridge. This was to prove too difficult to achieve as we didn't quite have the length in the end uprights to achieve the effect. The weather was foul all summer so we were unable to take the tarpaulin down and have a good look at the sweep effect.