In some cases, a typical concrete slab could be too heavy for the structure under the slab. Some typical cases are a large football stadion where a large parking is build under the grass. To save weight, expensive cellular glass blocks have to be used instead of a concrete slab. In other cases, ecologic landscape construction, performed with unbonded gravel can become difficult in case of steep hills.

GLAPOR, manufacturer of cellular glass boards and gravel advises to use cement bonded gravel for landscaping instead of cellular glass boards, especially when permeability of water is an advantage. The structure is resistant against freeze and thaw and installation takes much less labour. On top of that, this solution is lot cheaper (about 60€/m³) and guarantees the same negligible creep behaviour as boards.

To demonstrate  the above we have a report (part 1 part2) about recipes for cement bonded gravel. It can be observed that compressive strengths of 1200 kPa are reached with foamed glass gravel with compressive stress of 800 kPa at 30% compaction. The cement bonding increases the mechanical stability with 50% with only a negligble shrinking during installation. Like shown in the report, mixing and transport can be done like ordinary concrete.

One of the nicest examples of landscape construction with GLAPOR foamed glass gravel is performed in Austria by Swarovski and  it contains the musem in Wattens. Indeed, Austria has great architects.