An international competition to design two new pedestrian and cycle bridges in the town of Opladen near Leverkusen in Germany has been won by an Anglo-German team of Knight Architects and Knippers Helbig.
The competition was organised by Stadt Leverkusen and Regionale 2010 and involved the design of two 100m-long bridges to improve connections across the rail lines between Innenstadt and the proposed new development area of Neue Bahnstadt Opladen to the east.
The structural design makes efficient use of the frequent opportunities for placing supports between the railway lines. The beam depths vary according to span length so the varying wave form of the structure reflects the forces.
The pedestrian enclosure is formed with a series of vertical steel and timber fins, framing long views between the old and new towns. This provides a strong sense both of enclosure and linearity but in elevation the bridges appear highly transparent: the wave form floating above the railway.
