Silvertown Tunnel Portal Buildings

Photos copyright: Alex de Rijke, Anna Shpuntova, Jonas Lencer, John Zammit/Riverlinx and Luca Marino/TfL

dRMM’s portal buildings are located in the London Borough of Newham and the Royal Borough of Greenwich, at either end of the Silvertown Tunnel; a new 1.4km twin-lane road tunnel under the River Thames.

The brickwork achieves a striking chain link effect with double bullnose bricks laid in a Flemish bond which was in part inspired by a visit to our Design Centre, whilst still under construction, from Alex de Rijke. We were underway with the construction of our ‘specials wall’ using various British Standard special shapes (designed by AHMM) which led to a number of discussions on how to introduce some texture and interest. Assisted by our team, a number of bonds and specials were experimented with until the final selection was made.

The result is a fantastic new addition to the city as part of this important infrastructure project.