Corrugated Steel Retaining Wall…

[Geoffrey Campbell]

This posting is for a colleague who is looking for assistance with retaining wall material ideas, any thoughts are much appreciated. 

His statement to me:

“We are currently looking for material ideas such as corrugated steel to use as retaining walls.  We have a 3:1 slope where we will be building 2′ high pads for small gathering spaces that would also have earthen steps.  It is an interesting space in that we are looking at urban materials to “grow up” through the landscape.  The idea is these vertical elements will also catch peoples eye from a good distance away as there is an elevated rail system for daily commuters within view.  We are struggling with a window well type of setup that would have the nice rolled edge on one side and could easily be fastened to support posts.  What I also need to mention is this is built by volunteers during our annual project.  Part of the inspiration came from the National Aquarium plaza in Baltimore.  Anyone with ideas for materials?

[Geoffrey Campbell]

attached are some photos of the baltimore aquarium plaza

[Wyatt Thompson, PLA]

This is quite different from the aquarium photos, but you could try sheet piles. They would look urban, in an industrial sense, but that may not be the urban style you’re looking for. The volunteers also might need some professional help driving and cutting the piles.

[Mark Sanford]

Hows it going buddy, how about corten steel??? astm a501 corten steel

[Brian Hochstein]

I like the pile idea. I have only set walls on top of the retainined area. It would be sweet to pull that out of the ground (in the right style and context of course).

[Jason T. Radice]

They should have made those in Baltimore out of Corten..would have looked sooooo much better (and more natural). Plus, you don’t have to paint them – ever. They used Corten @ the Getty in LA with nicely hidden welds. Stunning.

[Kevin J. Gaughan]

I saw this modified gabion wall detail at the national zoo that might be interesting for this application.

this part was about 30″ high I would say, and only about 8″ thick. The same detail was used elsewhere though to retain roughly 15′.

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