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What’s the last best place for the world’s largest pedestrian bridge? If your answer is suspended 500 feet over a river gorge, you may have a new post-Covid bucket list destination. That is the predicament for the newly-opened 516 Arouca, which this week began accepting thrill-seekers... View full entry
With infrastructure negotiations currently taking center stage in the United States’ political discourse, researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) have published their findings on how a new approach to infrastructure maintenance would save federal and state governments millions of dollars... View full entry
In 2001, Grimshaw Architects completed the Enneüs Heerma Bridge that connected the neighborhood of IJburg to Amsterdam. Twenty years later, the man-made archipelago of IJburg is about to receive two more bridges from the practice that will serve as a connection to Strandeiland, a future... View full entry
Earlier this month, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was closed due to weather. However, a video posted to Twitter of the bridge undergoing heavy winds went viral due to the sights and sounds recorded. Bridges are built to pass strict safety and construction standards and be capable of withstanding... View full entry
LMN Architects has completed the Grand Avenue Park Bridge in Everett, Washington. The 257-foot-long steel truss structure spans from the hillside to a vertical concrete tower, creating a dynamic civil space that both addresses utility and leisure. The new bridge solves an intricate sequence of... View full entry
Built in less than two years to replace the collapsed Morandi bridge, the new span is already a point of pride for Italy. But residents fear it will not be enough to revive their aging port city. — The New York Times
Documentary about the new Genoa Bridge (in Italian). Video via Webuild S.p.A. on YouTube. The Genoa bridge project and its tragic origin on Archinect: Renzo Piano bridge in Genoa designed to “last 1,000 years” is nearly finishedConstruction of Renzo Piano-designed Genoa Bridge reaches... View full entry
The United States Coast Guard is warning that a concrete bridge in Stuart, Florida is "at risk of imminent collapse." CNN reports that the Roosevelt Bridge is currently closed for repairs after large structural cracks were discovered along the causeway's southbound span. The bridge, according to... View full entry
A ghostly, ear-rattling thrum emanating over the Golden Gate Bridge and throughout San Francisco’s Presidio neighborhood appears to be the result of high winds gusting through new slats on the bridge handrails.
Officials at San Francisco’s 311 call center acknowledged the issue on Twitter after it snowballed Friday night, with multiple users posting recordings of the deafening noise.
— San Francisco Chronicle
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a spokesman for the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District said that the sounds "were a known and inevitable part of a wind retrofit project" that the bridge had underwent. "As part of that larger project, engineers replaced the... View full entry
Rosannah Harding and Matthew Ostrow of HardingOstrow have won a first prize of $10,000 for the American Institute of Steel Construction's (AISC) 2020 Forge Prize. Their winning concept is a cantilevered pedestrian bridge and elevated park intended for a site in Manhattan that connects to the... View full entry
The Florida DOT (FDOT) announced last week that it will build a replacement for the pedestrian bridge that collapsed in March 2018 while under construction on the Florida International University campus in Miami. [...]
The department said that it will oversee and manage the construction of the new bridge and will incorporate the recommendations offered up by the National Transportation Safety Board [...].
— Construction Dive
The collapse of the pedestrian bridge on Florida International University's Miami campus killed six people in March 2018. View full entry
Demand for routine bridge inspections is expected to rise four times its current level to reach a market valuation of $6.3 billion by the end of 2029, according to research firm Fact.MR. A push for infrastructure modernization in the Asia-Pacific region the largest share of the market at 35%. — Construction Dive
According to Construction Dive, the need for more bridge inspections will be driven by a combination of aging infrastructure, exposure to damaging environmental conditions, and an increase in traffic volume, all of which speed up the deterioration of bridges. This is expected to raise... View full entry
The last of the 18 piers that will support the new Genoa bridge in Italy has been completed less than eight months after construction of the first foundations began. [...]
Ten of the sections of the deck that will rest on the piers have been installed so far; the current deck length of 550m is more than half of its eventual 1,067m length.
— Construction Index
43 people were killed and 14 more injured on August 14, 2018 when the nearly mile-long Morandi highway bridge in Genoa partially collapsed. Architect Renzo Piano, a Genoa native, was commissioned to design the 1,067-meter replacement bridge, and construction work started in June 2019. The... View full entry
The Providence River Pedestrian Bridge was designed by Detroit-based architecture firm inFORM Studio and structures designer BuroHappold for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT). Photo: Kroo Photography Flowing through the heart of the city, the new bridge connects two new... View full entry
China’s growing obsession with glass bridges may be coming to an abrupt end, after a series of accidents led one province to close down all its glass-bottomed attractions.
Hebei, a scenic mountainous province in northern China, has quietly closed all 32 of its glass bridges, walkways and mountain viewing platforms over the past year for safety reasons [...].
— The Guardian
Despite being breathtaking engineering marvels, China's fascination with glass-bottom bridges hasn't been without setbacks: in August 2016, the world's highest and longest glass-bottom bridge, the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bridge, opened in central Hunan province — but had to close... View full entry
Researchers at MIT have proven Leonardo da Vinci correct yet again, this time involving his design for what would have been at the time a revolutionary bridge design. Although clients rejected da Vinci's work at the time, over 500 years later, the researchers have proven that his bridge would have worked. — Popular Mechanics
Part of a proposal for Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, da Vinci's bridge was intended to connect what is now Istanbul to Galata, a neighboring city. The proposed design spanned about 918 feet and was of masonry construction, making use of the compressive characteristics of an arc... View full entry