£495,000 pedestrian bridge canopy lifted into place
A new £495,000 bridge canopy, designed by RMJM Architects and Buro Happold following an international competition last year, has just been lifted into place.
Inspired by the elegance of a swan in flight, the canopy was commissioned by Clydebank Re-built, the town’s urban regeneration company, and publicly funded. It spans the Forth and Clyde Canal in Clydebank town centre, replacing an unpopular 25-year-old metal-latticed frame bridge and creating a new focal point for the town.
Commended by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) as ‘a beacon to the regeneration of the area’, Buro Happold worked with RMJM to devise the graceful, swooping design for the structure, working with materials which are both sustainable and maintenance-free. The swan design, meanwhile, represents the diverse bird species found on the river, and symbolises the possibility for the community to enjoy a new lease of life through the area’s regeneration.
A beacon of regeneration
“This elegant canopy continues Buro Happold’s rich history in the design of this type of structure, which has included the Millennium Dome (now the O2 Arena), and the parasols used as stage canopies for a Pink Floyd world tour,” said Ian Hargreaves, project leader and associate director of Buro Happold’s structural engineering division in Edinburgh.
The canopy spans some 40 metres, cantilevering 20 metres either side of the central supports. The fabric, which is a self-cleaning and reusable PTFE coated glass fibre (the same material used to cover the O2 Arena), is stretched over a series of arches to form the wings of a swan. Each wing is supported by steel arms springing from four steel legs spread either side of the bridge; the steel is fully recyclable.
“A key design challenge was to resist the large wind uplift attracted by a wing-shaped canopy,” explained Hargreaves. “This was achieved by introducing cables, suspended from masts, to resist the gravity loads and downward wind forces, and secondly by separating the arms and the wing out to form a triangular truss, to resist the uplift wind forces.”
The underside of the wings will be bathed in colour by night
At night the canopy will be dramatically lit by a series of LED projectors mounted underneath it, bathing the underside of the wings in vivid, dramatic colours.
The old steel and polycarbonate canopy that the Swan replaces also used to support electrical supply and CCTV cables. Buro Happold’s building services team cleverly rerouted these supplies through the legs of the new structure.
The bridge is due to open to the public in May, and will eventually provide a link to another regenerated part of town – Queen’s Quays, the site of the former John Brown shipyard.
Project team:
Client: Clydebank Re-built
Architect: RMJM Architects
Buro Happold services: Structural, civil and building services engineering, Happold Lighting
Main contractor: Gray & Dick Ltd
Ends
Note to Editors:
Buro Happold
Press office and practice information at www.burohappold.com
Images are available on request.
For more information, please contact:
Jenni O’Connor
PR Officer
Tel +44 (0)1225 320600 ext. 2937
Fax +44 (0)8707 874148
Email jenni.o’connor@burohappold.com
Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976. We now employ over 1,700 staff in 21 offices worldwide, and our aim is to produce high quality engineering design in concept, in detail and in execution, on time, to programme and delivering excellent value for money. Our distinctive culture and ethos is still based on the same principles of care, value and elegance that were established when the practice was founded.
We offer structural, building services, civil, infrastructure and façade engineering, as well as a broad range of specialist consultancy services including sustainability, ground and environmental engineering, fire and security design, health and safety management, inclusive and urban design, project management, and specialist CAD and computer simulation provision.
