• Sugar City Silos
    Sugar City Silos
  • Aluminium House System
    Aluminium House System
  • Ballingdon Bridge
    Ballingdon Bridge
  • Osterfildern Building
    Osterfildern Building
The incredible high strength-to-weight ratio of aluminium makes it possible to design light structures with exceptionally stability. The use of aluminium provides architects with the means to meet required performance specifications, while minimizing expenditure on foundations. Thanks to the metal’s inherent strength, aluminium window and curtain wall frames can be very narrow, maximizing solar gains for given outer dimensions. In addition to which, the material’s light weight makes it cheaper and easier to transport and handle on site and reduces the risk of work-related injury.
Ballingdon Bridge at night is illuminated by purpose made bollards and won a Civic Trust Award for the excellence of the streetscape and how it is illuminated at night
© Suffolk County Council and Michael Stacey Architects
The design of Ballingdon Bridge prioritises pedestrians although it is a truck road bridge. The purposes made extruded aluminium sections of the balustrade are capable of stopping a 42 tonne truck
© Suffolk County Council and Michael Stacey Architects

Ballingdon Bridge

Ballingdon, United Kingdom

by Michael Stacey Architects

Aluminium plays a vital role in delivering the Ballingdon Bridge. Design priority was people enjoying the river and the urban spaces of Ballingdon and Sudbury. It is capable of arresting a 42 tonne truck yet appears to be an elegant pedestrian handrail, its strength being achieved by a combination of purpose made aluminium extrusions and stainless steel castings.

The setting of Ballingdon Bridge as it crosses the river Stour is a wonderful combination of a water meadow that surrounds Sudbury and the listed buildings that form the village of Ballingdon and town of Sudbury. This is Constable country and a bridge of high quality was essential, as an act of cultural continuity. Completed in 2003, the new trunk road bridge is the first to be built in Britain with an architect leading the design team. The previous bridge, built in 1911 could not sustain 42 tonne articulated lorries. The quality of Ballingdon Bridge has been recognized in the national and international design awards received by the project.

Aluminium plays a vital role in delivering Ballingdon Bridge. Durability was essential as the bridge has a 120 year design life. The balustrade was designed to be visually open so that the views of the landscape are as uninterrupted as possible. It is capable of arresting a 42 tonne truck yet appears to be an elegant pedestrian handrail, its strength being achieved by a combination of purpose made aluminium extrusions and stainless steel castings. The illuminated bollards designed for the project to avoid the need to use lampposts on the bridge are formed in water jet cut anodized aluminium. People enjoying the river and the urban spaces of Ballingdon and Sudbury are the priority within the design of this road bridge.

Michael Stacey was the partner in charge of Ballingdon Bridge at Brookes Stacey Randall Architects