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One of the most interesting challenges in today’s urban fabric is how to use pedestrian infrastructure to reconnect disconnected sections of a city. Very often the new links follow the path of former railway lines. A key example is the case of Paris’s Promenade Plantée, laid out some 30 years ago and perhaps the prototype of the overhead pedestrian walkway. The more recent High-Line in New York by Diller Scofidio + Renfro is further confirmation that the elevated pedestrian walkway has become almost a typological obsession, the epitome of a certain type of urban planning. Then there are other, completely new types of walkway that intelligently marry pedestrian flow requirements with often intriguing structural functionality, producing beautiful architecture that both blends with and embellishes its landscape context. One such example is the pedestrian bridge opened last year in Melbourne, the capital of the State of Victoria. A joint three-year design, planning and construction effort across hemispheres by recognized Australian practice John Wardle Architects and the acclaimed American firm NADAAA, the new bridge is distinctly unique in its complex yet harmonious structure. Of singular interest is the program whereby the intricate structural frame and the vector forces holding up the bridge become an integral part of the architectural design with a series of variably angled 34 mm diameter steel tubes forming a transparent filigree cradle effortlessly sustaining the bridge spans and visibly demonstrating the workings of the structural frame. Resting on poured-in-place reinforced concrete piers, the bridge is a series of prefabricated elements. A main steel plate box girder beam, made of reinforcement rods and flat steel, is supported by a continuous filigree of steel tubes, revealing the static equilibrium forces acting on the beam. In this way, the weight-bearing elements mesh with the non-load bearing structure that rises to form 140 cm high...
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genoa MAPPING
This edition of The CityPlan returns to Italy to explore "the marvelous city", as Genoa’s administrators like to call it. Our GIS-based maps giv...
Genoa The Marvelous City
“You see in Genoa a city in the act of ruling, seated on rough hillsides, superb in walls and men”. Francesco Petrarca, 1358 Genoa is both a physi...
PRAGMATISM AND TALENT FROM THE NETHERLANDS
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The Netherlands has been a hub of architectural innovation for the past hundred years, punching far above its weight - as it did during its Golden Age...
