Day 2 of the bridge project, was all about getting our design finalized and materials together. So, that we could begin construction on the model on day 3.

Precedent studies:

Nature was a huge part of the design looking at the first ideas. Spiders and trees were some thoughts. I suggested a spider as we would have a middle part which would be donut shape and have different access points leaving it; just like a spider’s legs.  But the group decided to consider the tree idea but keep some aspects of the spider’s legs idea for the different access points; so, we ended up with a dreamy tree house bridge, with the brunches on the tree supporting the donut shape in the middle.

We began drawing up some ideas, as well as looking at some existing bridges for more inspiration and seeing how they were positioned and made, most importantly the materials that we used in creating the bridge.

Some of the bridges we looked at were the Ponte Segunda Circular, Peace bridge in Luchtsingel, Melkwe bridge and the Laguna Garzon bridge. These bridges helped us in steering our design process.

Ponte Segunda Circular

The bridge was designed by Telmo Cruz of MXT studio this footbridge is in the second circular road in Lisbon. The footbridge caters for pedestrians and cyclists. The orange passage is constructed using steel.

Importantly the bridge was inspired by its surroundings of farm paths that found within the local landscape.

This was great as it showed us an example of a big bridge that was also able to compliment its existing landscape and that’s what our bridge needed to do as well as can have various assess points to reach more people.

 

Peace Bridge

Completed in 2012 and designed by architect Santiago. The peace bridge spans the bow river in Calgary connecting a residential community with the downtown area. Using a helical structure to partially enclose the bridge; a central bike lane with a pedestrian path can be found on the structure.

 

Melkwe Bridge

Found in Purmerend and designed by NEXT architects, separates pedestrians and cyclists on two levels. With an archway of step curves located on the lower deck, which splits to allow boats to travel through the Noordhollandsch Kanaal.

This is where we got the idea f the two different levels separating the cyclists and pedestrians, but we did not consider that this bridge is over water and therefore can be heavy compared to ours which will be located on land.

Laguna Bridge

Located in Garzon, Uruguay and was designed by Rafael Vinoly. It was designed in a circular shape to force drivers to slow down and allow pedestrian access along the one -way circular route.

Looking at this bridge was helpful as we could see a very recently built bridge with a similar design that we wanted to follow. Though research found that the bridge was made from concrete, which allowed us to reconsider the type of materials we could use, since our bridge wasn’t for cars we had to look at lightweight alternatives.

These are some the drawings we came up with after looking at some president studies.

We also started looking that legal requirement for the space a bike and pedestrians need on a bridge this was 5m between them with segregation which we would have.

 

 

 

We also able to decide on a location for our bridge.

Through the day we started building up upon the idea, one of these was having two separate bridges within the bridge, so basically having two different levels one for cyclists and another for pedestrians, that could be accessed to using a lift or a ramp; we also came up with having three circular structures as part of the bridge. The main one being a donut, and the others being domes with elevators and ramps for access. On further development, we thought of having columns that would add cover to both the levels, but unfortunately we were advised that wouldn’t work as it would make the structure heavy and not adaptable to the current environment.

 

So were basically back to square one on the idea and had to go back to the drawing board. The team leader advised everyone to go away and try and come up different ideas or concepts that would be able to fit within the existing environment but didn’t stray too much from the ordinal idea we came up with.

Resources

Pedestrian Bridges and footbridges with amazing design by Elizabeth Stamp-http://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/worlds-best-pedestrian-bridges/all

Rafael Vinoly completes cicular bridge spanning a Uruguayan logoon by Jessica Mairs -http://www.dezeen.com/2016/01/19/laguna-garzon-bridge-circular-rafael-vinoly-uruguay-lagoon/