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Description of Works
FM Conway has been working with the London Borough of Lambeth to showcase the art and culture of the community living in Loughborough Junction, South London.
As part of Lambeth Council's ongoing initiative to upgrade the area’s public realm in partnership with Transport for London, FM Conway’s civil engineering team was brought in to deliver an exciting design project intended to celebrate local identity and creative talent.
Kevin Brown, FM Conway’s Senior Project Manager, explains: “Working with local arts initiative 7 Bridges, our brief was to makeover Loughborough Junction rail bridge on Loughborough Road to transform it from a drab structure into a vibrant focal point for this busy local thoroughfare.”
Inspired by the area’s African and Caribbean culture, the new bridge design features UV lighting and luminescent geometric patterns and lettering. Getting the community involved in the delivery of the bridge upgrade was an important part of the scheme’s aim to bring local people together. FM Conway’s painting team, managed by Dave Otter, prepared and painted the base structure before local artists stencilled on the decorative designs.
Kevin comments: “Our job was to oversee the public’s involvement in the works, making sure that they could participate in a safe and fun way. We held safety inductions with local people and helped them access the bridge with our scissor lifts and cherry pickers. We also put part road closures in place during the works to protect both our teams and the public.
“In cooperation with Lambeth Council’s lighting team, we proposed a specialist astronomical timing system for the lights which adjusts with the seasons to make sure that the lights come on and go off at the correct time of day. Without this system, the timers would’ve had to been adjusted by hand to keep up with annual changes such as British Summertime, so it’s a much more cost-effective way of managing them.”
Kevin Brown - Senior Project Manager at FM ConwayThe decorative design has been painted with a mix incorporating luminescent paint, with the UV lighting system intended to make this really stand out at night.
The bridge will be an important part of the community for many years to come so it was important that the new design was durable to minimise lifetime management costs for Lambeth. It was therefore essential that FM Conway’s civil engineering team provided guidance on the bridge’s computerised UV lighting system to support the long-term efficiency of the scheme.
The bridge carries the Thameslink mainline and the FM Conway team worked closely with Network Rail to confirm that the specification for the new lighting and paint met railway safety standards and would not cause any structural corrosion. The high-quality lighting system installed by the civil engineering team can also be easily removed to allow Network Rail to carry out any bridge repair works that might need to be made in future.