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Revealed: the new Thames bridge proposal that's a 'no-brainer'
You wait years for a new bridge across the Thames then three come along at once. Joining the controversial garden bridge and a plan for a crossing between Nine Elms and Pimlico, both of which have fierce opponents, comes a proposal unveiled today for a new pedestrian and cycle bridge between Rotherhithe and the Isle of Dogs in east London that hasn’t aroused a single objection – yet.
There’s a good reason why: of the three plans, it makes by far the most sense. The new design is proposed for a place desperately short of cross-river connections and with urgent need for one. At least 3,300 new homes and places for 2,000 new jobs are fast rising out of the ground at Canada Water to the south, while around 105,000 people currently work across the river at Canary Wharf (a figure that’s set to double by 2030). The current options to get between the two without driving include taking the congested Jubilee line, waiting for an occasional boat shuttle, or risking life and lung by going through the Rotherhithe Tunnel.
“It’s a no-brainer,” says architect Nik Randall, a Southwark resident for 30 years, whose practice ReForm has come up with a design for the bridge with engineers Elliott Wood. “It has the potential to unlock journeys way beyond the surrounding area, encouraging people to cycle to work who might not ever have considered it before.”
Their scheme takes the form of a pair of sharp white steel boomerangs, tautly strung across the river and fixed so they can pivot to allow the deck to open in the middle, like Tower Bridge, and let tall ships pass through. In an ingenious – and the designers say unique – move, the 100-tonne counterweights, required to open a “bascule” drawbridge of this kind, are embedded in the length of the two masts, doing away with the need for hefty enclosures to house them in the rest of the structure. The two sides simply pivot, allowing the angled masts to slot effortlessly into the wishbone-shaped decks at either side. The result is an exceptionally lean structure, which looks like a pair of whale bones held in fine balance. It would be an appropriately graceful gateway to greet boats arriving in London, after they’ve chugged beneath the growling Dartford Crossing out in the estuary. But is it ever likely to happen?
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/nov/24/revealed-the-new-thames-bridge-proposal-thats-a-no-brainer
There’s a good reason why: of the three plans, it makes by far the most sense. The new design is proposed for a place desperately short of cross-river connections and with urgent need for one. At least 3,300 new homes and places for 2,000 new jobs are fast rising out of the ground at Canada Water to the south, while around 105,000 people currently work across the river at Canary Wharf (a figure that’s set to double by 2030). The current options to get between the two without driving include taking the congested Jubilee line, waiting for an occasional boat shuttle, or risking life and lung by going through the Rotherhithe Tunnel.
“It’s a no-brainer,” says architect Nik Randall, a Southwark resident for 30 years, whose practice ReForm has come up with a design for the bridge with engineers Elliott Wood. “It has the potential to unlock journeys way beyond the surrounding area, encouraging people to cycle to work who might not ever have considered it before.”
Their scheme takes the form of a pair of sharp white steel boomerangs, tautly strung across the river and fixed so they can pivot to allow the deck to open in the middle, like Tower Bridge, and let tall ships pass through. In an ingenious – and the designers say unique – move, the 100-tonne counterweights, required to open a “bascule” drawbridge of this kind, are embedded in the length of the two masts, doing away with the need for hefty enclosures to house them in the rest of the structure. The two sides simply pivot, allowing the angled masts to slot effortlessly into the wishbone-shaped decks at either side. The result is an exceptionally lean structure, which looks like a pair of whale bones held in fine balance. It would be an appropriately graceful gateway to greet boats arriving in London, after they’ve chugged beneath the growling Dartford Crossing out in the estuary. But is it ever likely to happen?
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/nov/24/revealed-the-new-thames-bridge-proposal-thats-a-no-brainer
Video at the link. it does look elegant. The article is mainly about whether London planning is by-passing a democratic process, not to mention the law, for its bridge projects.
