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Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge Sittard Ge

The Sittard-Geleen bicycle and pedestrian bridge is designed to enhance connectivity between the city, business park, and sports area, featuring an hourglass shape that encourages crossing. The bridge incorporates a gradual slope for accessibility, with a unique design using traditional shipbuilding techniques to create a double-curved surface. Its aesthetic includes a blue-grey-green outer skin that blends with the environment and a reflective inner skin, integrating safety features and lighting seamlessly.

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Lean Miguel Comora
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28 views2 pages

Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge Sittard Ge

The Sittard-Geleen bicycle and pedestrian bridge is designed to enhance connectivity between the city, business park, and sports area, featuring an hourglass shape that encourages crossing. The bridge incorporates a gradual slope for accessibility, with a unique design using traditional shipbuilding techniques to create a double-curved surface. Its aesthetic includes a blue-grey-green outer skin that blends with the environment and a reflective inner skin, integrating safety features and lighting seamlessly.

Uploaded by

Lean Miguel Comora
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CONFERENCE 6.—8.9.

2017 TU-BERLIN

DOI: 10.24904/footbridge2017.09652

BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE SITTARD-GELEEN


Rob TORSING Ralph KIEFT Jack BAKKER

Architect Architect Expert parametric design


ZJA Architects ZJA Architects ZJA Architects
Amsterdam, Netherlands Amsterdam, Netherlands Amsterdam, Netherlands
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Summary
The steel bicycle and pedestrian bridge crossing the railway line Sittard-Maastricht intends to simplify and
increase contacts between the city, business park Fortuna and sports area Limburg. The bridge is firmly
embedded in the green roadside scenery along both railroad tracks, and has an elegant shape and subtle
details. The chosen form of the hourglass invites people to come closer and cross the bridge. Comfort and
accessibility of the crossing were the main principles of the design.
The bridge offers a natural and smooth connection to the bike paths from four directions. By basing the
design on a reduction of the overhead wire height, the maximum difference in height on accessible surfaces
could be reduced to just over three meters. Therefore, and because the bridge widens from 4,5 meters in its
mid to over 12 meters at the bases, the slopes are gradual and comfortable.
The skin of the bridge is part of the load-bearing structure, and the curved shape of the middle part
enhances the fluent character of the bridge. The parapet is a seamless extension of the bridge surface. All
safety and guidance features as well as the linear LED lamps that light up the bridge deck are integrated into
it. The skin of the parapet is perforated as much as possible to achieve transparency. The steel outer skin of
the bridge has a blue-grey-green colour and blends into the vegetation of the bridge ramps. The white-grey
inner skin provides a spatial and fresh appearance and is reflective to light. Thus, the inner skin forms a
contrast with the outer skin of the bridge.

Fig. 1&2. Impression of the preliminary design by ZJA Architects

The inviting hourglass form and the curved skin, that also extends in height, constitute the basis of a unique
and, at the same time, challenging design. The hourglass shaped, three-dimensional reference surface is
double curved everywhere. In order to achieve an affordable and feasible design, a centuries old technique
from traditional shipbuilding industry known, as the ‘carvel planking’ (in Dutch ‘gangenbouw’), was used.
With this technique, the original volume is approximated by a set of developable surfaces. The individual

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CONFERENCE 6.—8.9.2017 TU-BERLIN

elements are single curved strips, the number of which can be varied depending upon the desired
‘resolution’. The more strips used, the smoother the appearance of the overall surface becomes. With the aid
of tailor-made software, ZJA was able to develop the proper geometry in a relatively simple manner and
thereby generate the necessary templates for a practical and affordable production method.
Keywords: parametric design; computational design; coding in design; double curved surfaces;
file to factory; bicycle bridge

Fig. 3. Bicycle and pedestrian bridge Sittard-Geleen

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