Earlier this year the profession gave its first Sir John Armitt Prize to a coastal defence scheme, and the citation is worth reading twice. We accept this the way we accept that a fuse box is ugly – coastal defence is serious infrastructure, so of course it looks severe. For most of the history of coastal engineering the available materials were quarried rock and poured concrete, and both arrive in one colour. The part of a coastal structure that the public experiences is the part that can be given a character. The narrow claim is this – there is no engineering reason for coastal protection to be grey.