Wednesday, October 28, 2009

3 really cool pedestrian bridges

I've been really OKC-focused lately, with all of the MAPS 3 discussion heating up. How about if I take a step back and showcase some really cool architecture from elsewhere, and of course it will be relevant to the case of OKC. For this post, here are 3 really cool pedestrian bridges.

This is one that the City of Calgary is building across the Bow River. The bridge, designed by world-famous architect Santiago Calatrava, will be dubbed the Peace Bridge. It will cost $24 million, which is significantly higher than OKC's proposed SkyDance Bridge--granted you'd spend more on infrastructure in a downtown that already has 30,000 residents and 120,000 workers (and expecting to add 40,000 more residents and 60,000 in the next two decades). And I'm not really sure if Santiago Calatrava is who you go to when you want a really cool design on a shoestring budget.




And now this one is cool. This is the formerly proposed pedestrian bridge crossing the River Clyde in Glasgow. For this design the City of Glasgow opened the process up to an international design competition, and this was the best design, chosen in 2003. The project was shelved in '06 amidst the onset of the global recession. The project would have cost an estimated £22 million (pounds).


Marina Bay Pedestrian Bridge, linking Singapore's central business district to an entertainment complex. Sort of a cool double-helix design, possibly inspired by a DNA molecule.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is done very nicely...a nice presentation of hte subject of Pedestrian bridges....Well done.