Infrastructures: The Latest Architecture and News

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Located in Doha, Sharq Crossing is a set of three interconnected bridges spanning almost ten kilometres in the Doha Bay. Designed by the famed architect Santiago Calatrava, the bridge will connect the city's cultural district in the north to Hamad International Airport and the central business district in West Bay. The bridges, which are designed to accomodate as many as 2,000 vehicles an hour per lane, are also flanked by a series of subsea tunnels to manage and direct the flow of traffic across the bay.

OMA has won an international competition to design Pont Jean-Jacques Bosc, a bridge across the river Garonne in Bordeaux, France, that will link the municipalities of Bègles and Floriac. The 44m by 545m bridge, which will act as "a generous new public space" and "an urban planning intervention" for the city, giving priority to pedestrian traffic, is the first to be realized by OMA. It is scheduled for completion in 2018.

According to Clément Blanchet, director of OMA France, the bridge "is not the ‘event’ in the city, but a platform that can accommodate events of the city [...it] may be the least technical, least lyrical, but [it is] the most concise and effective structural solution.”

The architect's description of the project, after the break...

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NEXT architects has been awarded first prize in an international competition to design a pedestrian bridge for Meixi Lake in Changsha. Designed to be “more than just a connection,” the footbridge will serve as a key public space for a new lake district within the Dragon King Harbor River development. Recreational, ecological and touristic programs will be integrated into the 150 meter-long, 24 meter-high elevated parkway.

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Though the fastest way to get from point A to point B is a straight line, architects Arturo Tedeschi and Maurizio Arturo Degni of Arturo Tedeschi (A>T) also believe it is the most boring way. Inspired by Sou Fujimoto’s 2013 Serpentine Pavilion and formed by a specific algorithm, A>T’s “Cloudbridge” seeks to heighten the experience of footbridges by creating a non-linear path that slows users down and connects them with the surrounding nature. According to the architects, the cloud-like bridge, made of a cubic steel modular frame and supported by a main beam, could easily constructed in any major mountain range.

After winning a Transport for London (TfL) tender for ideas to improve pedestrian access across the River Thames, Thomas Heatherwick and Arup unveiled plans for a new, 367-meter long ‘Garden Bridge’ that will span the river from Temple to the Southbank. The lush pedestrian corridor, earmarked for opening in 2017, would be the first new crossing since the Millennium Bridge opened to the public in 2002.

More details and updated images after the break...

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