Material Selection & Tenders

Whilst walking into work this morning I conducted a mini material selection experiment. The roads of Zhuhai (珠海) are not paved with gold. They’re paved in a massive selection of materials. Some are easy to walk on but some are massively slippery and uneven. It got me thinking...

Looking at the images and the street view it seems plausible that there was a tender for raw material supply and everybody won.

When selecting the best pavement to walk on, we rank the least slippery being...

1. Paint used on bike lane
2. Bike Lane
3. Concrete
4. Bricks
5. Moulded bricks with grooves 

The rounded stones are pretty bad and the worst offender is by far the polished stone lane. This all goes to show that it is important to conduct a thorough market study before choosing materials for construction or product design. After all a pavement is a product too.

When going to tender, it is important to communicate with the issuing company or body and work with them early in the development phase on materials selection and propose and defend your selection on a wide range of measures (not in this order)....

- Cost
- Cost of production / Installation 
- Durability
- Function
- Aesthetic
- Others....

PS - Here is our Photoshop on Zhuhai (珠海) streets paved with gold as mentioned above. Want to come visit?

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