S1Station Quarter North, Southampton ‘Canal Shore’ is a 205m long bespoke basalt kerb detail with inset granite text, running along Blechynden Terrace that completed in September this year.

Project Artist Christopher Tipping’s role was to create a contextual response to the site, which would exert a positive influence on the design process and outcomes, with a particular emphasis on the interpretation of the public realm.

Chris undertook a detailed investigation into the neighborhood’s social history, geography, ecology and culture to uncover contextual information, which inform the area’s current form, identity & reputation. This site-specific and research-led activity assisted in driving the creative concept & rationale, which now underpins the general spatial layout, character and interpretation of the new public realm proposals.

An understanding of the site’s past physical condition drives the overall theme and character of the landscape & public realm interventions: a wooded valley, a meandering stream, the curve of the historic shoreline & the ill fated Salisbury to Southampton Canal.

This Crystal Black granite kerb detail, itself an emphatic 205m long x 700mm wide, is inlaid throughout its length with Royal White granite text, all supplied by Hardscape. The Artscape text further explores and narrates the events that have shaped this site for almost a thousand years. Its functionality is also critical to the scheme; its length articulated with elegant but engineered and robust dropped kerbs, transitions setts & crossing points.

Hardscape worked closely with Artist Chris Tipping and CH2M (landscape architects) as well as Balfour Beatty Living Places and Balfour Beatty were the main contractors.