Urban surface design

Aesthetics - texture + material

While texture in landscapes is often created using plants and vegetation it can also be created using hard materials.

Fineness or coarseness, roughness or smoothness, heaviness or lightness are all considerations frequently considered in the detail of urban surface design. All of these are applicable to grating design.

Traditional drainage gratings served to create a ‘permeable’ surface that spanned the width of an underlying channel, however today’s options include much more, from integrated inlets and discrete slot systems to permeable resin bound aggregate tiles.

The ACO channel ranges span domestic, commercial and industrial applications with surface finish options having been developed to deliver performance in a wide variety environments, from aggressive sites exposed to high loading of traffic and locations exposed to corrosive elements to the more aesthetic applications used by all manner of pedestrian and light traffic.

The extensive ACO grating range features options manufactured from materials such as ductile iron, stainless steel, galvanised steel, polymer concrete and polypropylene composites.  This offers very significant flexibility for designers, for example ductile iron can provide a classic durable identity on all grating forms while stainless steel could be used in a slot format providing the most discrete and ‘clean’ surface finish.

While there are clearly characteristics and benefits specific to each of these types of materials ACO also offers an additional high performance surface finish - ACO ATec* - a corrosion resistant coating that provides a strong durable finish that maintains the overall aesthetics of the grating.

*Available only on specific grating types