HOME |
RSS | 
The Twist Bridge in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands, was built for bicycles and pedestrians to cross the canal, but it’s also a work of art! Made of 400 steel tubes, the matrix that covers the bridge is eye-catching and also absorbs vibrations. See more pictures at Amusing Planet. Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Flickr user Theo Lagendijk)
In this student film by Ting Tey, four animals impede each other’s progress in crossing a bridge. Cooperation only comes by the threat of what could happen if they don’t! -via the Presurfer
What do you get when you combine wind chimes and a bridge? Here's a kinetic sculpture by Mark Nixon called Chimecco, which was recently exhibited at the Sculpture by the Sea in Aarhus, Denmark:
Made from 600 50mm diameter gold anodized aluminium pipes ranging in length from 120 mm up to 3750mm, the pipes are attached to the underside of a bridge, creating a sort of instrument that resembles a giant insect. On the top of the bridge are interactive nodes that allow people to “play” it. The instrument is completed by the combined interactions of human and natural movement, but it can never be experienced in its totality.
Design Milk has the pics: Link
There’s not a force in this universe that could get me to cross a bridge made of dead grass, suspended hundreds of feet over a river, swaying gently in the breeze between a couple of rock faces. That said, it’s still kind of sad that the hundreds of handwoven bridges that existed in Peru for centuries are gone, leaving only a single example of Incan bridge technology.
Known as keshwa chaca, this is the only remaining example of the Incan handwoven bridges once common in the Incan road system. Made of woven grass, the bridge spans 118 feet and hangs 220 feet above the canyon’s rushing river.
The Incan women braided small, thin ropes, which were then braided again by the men into large support cables, much like a modern steel suspension bridge. Handwoven bridges lasted as long as 500 years and were held in very high regard by the Inca. The punishment for tampering with such a bridge was death.
Over time, however, the bridges decayed, or were removed, leaving this single testament to Incan engineering. This previously sagging bridge was repaired in 2003, christened with a traditional Incan ceremonial bridge blessing, and is now in extremely good condition.
Link (Image: Dylan Thuras)
I know you are familiar with this picture of workers on the Brooklyn Bridge, taken in 1914 by Eugene de Salignac for the city of New York. But wait… why is the guy on the right so much bigger than the others? He’s not. Rob at the What Is It? Blog altered the picture to make it an optical illusion!
A few weeks ago I saw this old picture on the web of the Brooklyn Bridge painters and thought it was perfect for the classic perspective optical illusion, I made an exact copy of the person on the left of the photo and placed it on the right.
Pretty neat, wouldn’t you say? -Thanks, Rob!
The Webb Bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist bridge across the Yarra River in Melbourne, Australia. It’s designed to resemble eel traps used by the Koori, a people native to New South Wales and Victoria. The bridge was constructed out of material recycled from a previous rail bridge of the same name.
via DVICE | Photo by Flickr user mugley used under Creative Commons license
Comments Off
This one is pretty nifty: LEGO has a new kit that lets you build the Tower Bridge of London (complete with the iconic red Double Decker bus and the Black Cab) out of LEGO bricks. Link
(Image credit: Aaron Logan)
Some of us simply have trouble accepting things as they are. Apparently I do. There is hardly any sight in Northern California more beautiful than that of the Golden Gate Bridge. With its distinctive orange-vermillion paint job, faithfully maintained year after year, it can be seen for miles. I have no problem with the bridge as it is; I love it. But sometimes I get an urge to see what something might look like if it were different. In late 2007 I began to redesign the Golden Gate Bridge. I tried various schemes, and prepared enough drawings to satisfy my curiosity. I had fun, but my designs were pretty ugly.
Whimsically-designed public works are relatively rare in cities around the world, but not entirely absent. In Rome, tourists may occasionally encounter silly and amusing public sculptures and fountains. Working on my designs for the Golden Gate Bridge, I tried shapes that might be amusing to a child. But honestly, a design like the one depicted above might not seem so funny to commuters who had to drive between its legs twice a day.
For sure, I lack the engineering expertise that I would need if I were to actually redesign the Golden Gate Bridge. My funky, wiggly and organic bridge support structure lacks gravitas and seriousness. An international competition would be needed for such an important project. The competition would offer an opportunity for talented bridge engineers to show off their unique plans for the bridge. Allowing engineer-sculptors to submit designs would be an exciting event, though emotions would run high, given the public’s sentimental attachment to the bridge’s dramatic and straightforward design that has attracted admirers during its entire 77-year history. Judges would need to assess entries to make sure they met standards for public taste and morality, engineering integrity and ease of maintenance.
Even though it would be possible to match the existing strength of the Golden Gate Bridge’s suspension system by using materials and structural members different from the original cable system, the public would likely rebel at a structure that is unpleasant to look at.
If my designs were built, the focus of the discussion would shift from the bridge’s virtues to a public debate concerning the designer’s sanity!
Bridge supports could become tourist attractions. Here, a ship that is loaded with tourists docks alongside one of the Robot Man bridge supports and lets off passengers. They ride the elevator up to Robot’s Chest Restaurant, or all the way to the top to Robot’s Head Bar.
Seriously, I am distressed by the dangerous condition of the aging bridges, highways, railroad tracks, and trestles that make up the nation’s transportation system. With declining or absent budgets, there is less room for public discussion about the need for high-level aesthetic input. Perhaps a general appreciation for the work of star designers and big thinkers is waning right along with shrinking budgets. And while humor is known to be an indispensable concomitant and byproduct of human intelligence, it is not listed as a design criteria in public works budgets.
For decades I have believed there is a need for whimsy in publicly-funded works such as street furniture and urban signage. Here’s my idea sketch for 1983 that included a note: “What would happen if engineers in the Public Works Department had a bigger budget and an opportunity to express a sense of humor.”
No doubt, not all parts of the public infrastructure system are amenable to or improved by the application of whimsy. My 1990 drawing of a future public transportation system, dubbed Municipal Light Entertainment Rail, showed a system that would likely be more disturbing than comforting! For example, the experience of being mugged while riding inside a tunnel – one made to look like the rib cage and intestines of a monstrous fish – would be deeply unnerving! An individual might need years of therapy to recover from the event.
[YouTube - Link]
An awesome farmer in Ekton, Maryland created this twisted and towering goat bridge to give his goats access to two separate pens, and no doubt add some enjoyment to his day. This is exactly what I would have designed as a kid, and it’s oddly entertaining for something so simple.
Link via UniqueDaily
Russian authorities shut down a seven-kilometer-long bridge over the Volga River in Volgograd last week after it started to wobble. Floodwaters loosened one support, which affected the stability of the entire bridge, which is the longest in Europe Russia. The video is reminiscent of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge just before it collapsed. The Volgograd bridge was completed less than a year ago. Link -via Arbroath
A simple, but unusual and elegant design: a bridge in the city of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands uses two arms to swing a section of road in and out of place. It’s called the “Slauerhoffbrug” and was built in 2000.
Image Gallery and Aerial View via The Presurfer | Photo: Frozenly
Any pet owner would understand that dogs do not commit suicide. There is, however, a bridge near Dunbarton, Scotland from which more than 50 dogs have jumped to their death. These are not cases in which people maliciously throw dogs from bridges – the dogs have jumped over the edge while in the presence of their devastated owners.
This video appears to be a brief excerpt (intro and conclusion) of a longer television documentary, and has some overly dramatized narration, but the point it makes is an important one for dog owners.
Spoiler/explanation: A dog does not fully comprehend the nature of a bridge. If it cannot see what is on the other side of the railing (solid stone in this instance), it will assume that what it sees is a wall, and that the ground on the other side of the wall would be level with the bridge surface. If something attractive to the dog (a sound or scent) is on the other side, there is a risk the dog will leap over the edge to investigate. In the case of Overtoun Bridge the lure may have been the scent of mink, but the same basic principle could apply anywhere in the world. Dog owners should consider keeping their dogs on a leash when crossing such bridges.
Link with supplementary text, via Dark Roasted Blend.
Addendum: Kurioso found an article in Spanish about the bridge, with a photo showing how the bridge looks to someone (or a dog) walking over it – like a garden path with waist-high walls. Photo source.
The Kurilpa Bridge crossing the river into Brisbane, Australia is expected to carry around 36,000 pedestrians every week. The world’s longest solar foot bridge is 1,500 feet long and sports 84 solar panels. The panels produce all the energy the bridge needs for its LED lighting and sends 25% of the power generated back to the city’s electrical grid. Link -via Digg
Photo by Russos
No, not Double-Dutch, and not quite Bungee jumping. The kids these days and their fads- EnglishRussia has an interesting series of pictures of the group rope-jumping craze sweeping the country.
As illustrated above, a group simultaneously jumps from a bridge (as a train bears down on them), clinging to ropes that swing them up towards the other side. No details on what kind of injuries this involves, but the line tangles don’t look encouraging.
The Qatar-Bahrain Friendship Causeway will connect the Persian Gulf states of Qatar and Bahrain over a 40 km causeway. Construction is scheduled to begin next year at a cost of $2.3 billion. The structure will include both a roadway and a railway, and will reduce travel time between the nations to a mere 30 minutes. Once completed it will become the longest bridge in the world, surpassing the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in the U.S., which is 38 km long. At the link, you can view a comparative graphic.
Butter … is there anything it can’t do? Add this to the long list of the awesome things butter can do: in China, they use it to prevent suicides!
Government officials in south-east China have ordered workers to cover a 1,000 ft long steel bridge in butter to prevent citizens from using it to attempt suicide.
All the climbable surfaces on the structure in Guangzhou have been covered in greasy fat to put an end to the spate of people threatening to jump from it, The Sun reports.
Government spokesman Shiu Liang said: "We tried employing guards at both ends but that didn’t work – and we put up special fences and notices asking people not to commit suicide here.
"None of it worked – and so now we have put butter over the bridge and it has worked very well. Nobody can get up there and nobody who tries ever falls."
Photo: russos
There’s an odd fad taking off (jumping off?) in Russia: jumping off a bridge en masse after tethering yourself to a rope! For even more fun, wait till the train is passing by … Link – via kottke
We are all familiar with the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge a.k.a. “The galloping Gertie”, a long suspension bridges in the U.S. state of Washington, which spans accross the Tacoma Narrows between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula. We also know of its demise when on November 7, 1940, at approximately 11:00 AM it became famous for its wind-induced structural collapse that was caught on motion picture film. What is least known about the collapse is that it was also captured in “color”.
Link: Youtube
