Author Archives: Maddison Edwards

This blog entry will be a summary of the week. We faced many challenging moments but equally many positive. As a team we worked well, all contributing something to the group. Resulting in what I believe to be, the creation of a unique and workable design.
Unfortunately though, it must be commented on that our time management let us down, which was evident in our final model.

Nevertheless, this was our first group presentation and what we did produce was carefully thought out.
Another challenge we faced, was the process in reaching our final design concept. Originally we were very focused on the artistic aspect and created designs that ended up not feasible. Our focus was on ‘form over function’ and this was something we had to address. In the end though, I believe not getting it right the first time was actually beneficial to us, as it meant our final idea was both interesting and practical. Having been well informed and had all elements involved, explored and researched thoroughly. The image below illustrates our developmental process as a group.

I learnt a lot from the week, starting with the importance of delegation within a group when undertaking something similar to this. It also made me more aware of how recognising others strengths and weaknesses can lead to a better outcome as the delegation of tasks is more effective. Moreover, listening to others present was highly insightful. It highlighted good and bad presentation techniques, which will definitely stay with me and hopefully help me in future presentations, to produce the best speech in order to really sell the design.
Finally, I learnt more about my own skills and feel that my illustrations and presentation of ideas is a particularly strong point of mine. However, my delivery in speaking about our design could be improved upon, in order to make future presentations sound more confident and professional.
Overall, the week for me was a definite success and I am pleased about the task that was set.

When presenting on the Friday, I spoke about structural materials. This involved those both real and for the model. The 3 most essential elements to consider were the deck, piers and our roofing structure. All of which, involved some in depth research and below I am going to outline our choices, beginning with the deck.

DECK
• Real: Our material choice here was concrete for its longevity and low maintenance, attributing to its economical benefits. Further to this, the option for it to be precast is ideal for quick construction of the bridge, an essential factor in this instance, due to the busy nature of Lewes Road.
•Model: Foam modelling board illustrated the deck for us. It was the best option because of its ease to cut and shape. Moreover, its rigidity provided a solid base to work the rest of our model around.

PIERS
•Real: Galvanised steel would provide our structure with the appropriate support. As a material it has many measurable benefits including longevity and resistance to corrosion/ moisture. The erection of galvanised steel components is also very efficient.
Model: Wooden dowel was used to demonstrate the placement of supports in our model. The reason we chose to work with wood, was because we needed different lengths and knew that wooden dowel would be quick to cut, shape and could be glued easily with a glue gun. It would also be able to take the load of the foam modelling board and other model materials with ease.

ROOFING
•Real: This was probably the toughest decision to make and consequently more time was spent researching materials and similar existing structures. Our end decision was primarily informed by looking back at two of our earlier precedent studies; The Webb in Melbourne and the Peace Bridge in Calgary. By considering them and using our own knowledge and ideas we decided upon toughened glass, supported by a steel framework with a protective sheeting/ layer over the glass areas; for vandalism and health and safety purposes. Toughened glass would allow us to achieve the modern and open space we had envisioned, whilst also being a feasible choice due to its properties including being a thermal resistant glass.
•Model: Plastic sheeting was the obvious choice to make this design work in model form. It’s flexibility made it perfect to create the curvature and it could be held to the deck easily with the use of a glue gun. More wooden dowel was used to represent the steel framework. Unfortunately due to time management, our model did not reflect our design and its potential. However, our ideas were all well informed and illustrated in the form of drawings.

Each member of the group agreed upon a section from the poster criteria to contribute. My section was to conceptually present our structure through a means of freehand sketches, with relevant annotation. Whilst this may seem a simple task, illustrating the concept to make it clear to everyone was rather challenging.
I wanted my illustrations to be informed and the configurations to be proportionate. The use of the web and one book in particular – ‘Living Bridges’ by Dethier, J. (1996) proved helpful towards achieving this.
I also heavily contributed towards the presentation of the poster, writing up and illustrating the sections sent to me by the other group members.

Forces acting upon the bridge flagged up as a very important area for consideration as I began creating conceptual sketches.
All bridges must balance forces in order to be successful.
The two main forces include compression and tension, which channel loads through the structure via its adjustments and piers.
Forces acting upon the bridge flagged up as a very important area for consideration as I began creating conceptual sketches.
All bridges must balance forces in order to be successful.
The two main forces include compression and tension, which channel loads through the structure via its adjustments and piers.

Loads can be described as dead or live loads.
Where the dead load is known as static, in theory being the structure itself. Therefore it’s self weight, made up of the densities of materials, for example reinforced concrete is approximately 25kN/m^3. The live load on the other hand, changes dependent on activity on the bridge.

Day 2 involved a substantial amount of design and planning. The morning was spent creating a design, before anthropometric data and scaling to determine the feasibility of the idea was investigated. Further to this, we not only explored real sizes and material options but spent much of the day scaling it down and reviewing materials available for our model. We achieved this in the most proficient way, for time purposes, by each looking at an element of the design and sketching various views, with sizes and annotation to get the best understanding of how it would work (My area for exploration was the ramps). Unfortunately, towards the end of the day it became apparent that our concept was not as practical as we had initially thought and this lead to the need for many changes in the direction of our project.

The week begun with an introduction, site visit and modelling lab induction, which were essential to clearly establishing the project.
Our designated task throughout the day, was then to begin some conceptual design ideas. In order to create a feasible and artistic design, prior research to beginning any sketches was key.
By the end of the day we felt confident with the site layout and thought we had a good starting point to work from. Our idea involved a central roundabout over the road, to act as a centre piece to the two points we wanted to create easier access between (inspired by Luchtsingel, Netherlands).