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Puente del Alamillo, 1992. Guadalquivir River, Seville, Spain. Designed by Santiago Calatrava.

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Some of the most innovative bridges in the planet

Bridges have always had a certain poetic and metaphoric halo surrounding them. People admire them for their design and intrinsic beauty, and it is usually a catastrophe for a community when a bridge disappears for some reason. Probably the reason is that bridges are that part of the construction industry that most clearly shows why it is important to connect people. Because that is precisely what bridges do. They connect people. They make it possible for communities separated by a river or an irregular piece of land to interact with each other, and share their traditions and culture, their way of life, and really become neighbors.

But bridges represent a really serious challenge to human ingenuity. Serious, but even so an immensely fascinating one at the same time. And the explanation for this is that the level of precision and technical skill required for their construction is highly remarkable, not to mention the social responsibility involved in them regarding safety issues for the people that will cross them.

Image courtesy of Tim Snell at Flickr.com

In the last decades, innovations in the design of bridges have had a huge impact on the ways that they connect people around the entire planet. Some of the most outstanding approaches to solve different problems in civil engineering, and some of the most innovative materials and techniques employed in the construction industry, have found a place in different bridges built around the world. Likewise, sustainability has turned into one central component in the process of their design. They have become in that way not only useful and beautiful pieces of architecture and engineering, but also sustainable structures that contribute to a better future for all the communities impacted by them. The following list will show you some of the most innovative bridges that have being built in different places of the globe.

Kurilpa Bridge

Located in Brisbane, Queensland (Australia), the Kurilpa Bridge is a pedestrian and bicycle bridge over the Brisbane River. This hybrid tensegrity bridge, the largest one in the world, is around 470 m long, and is lit with a LED lighting system that depends almost entirely on 84 solar panels integrated to the structure. The current name of the bridge was decided on 23 November 2008, after a public competition to replace its previous name: Tank Street Bridge. Kurilpa, which means place for water rats, is the Australian Aboriginal word to refer to the South Brisbane and West End area, where the bridge is located.

Image courtesy of Indra Gunawan at flickr.com (Langkawi Sky Bridge)

Langkawi Sky Bridge

Located at the peak of Mount Mat Cincang on Langkawi (Malaysia), 660 m above the sea level, this cable-stayed bridge has a length of 125 m, and a width of 1.8 m. The Langkawi Sky Bridge is a pedestrian bridge whose curved shape lets the visitors have a very intimate experience of the top of the forest and its different forms of wildlife. It also provides them with great panoramic views of Langkawi, an archipelago of 99 islands. This was perhaps the reason why the Langkawi Sky Bridge was chosen to film the last scene of the Indian action thriller Don: The Chase Begins Again directed by Farhan Akhtar.

Alamillo Bridge

Located over the Canal de Alfonso XIII, in Seville, Andalucía (Spain), the Alamillo Bridge was designed by Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish structural engineer and neo futuristic architect, but also sculptor and painter. This bridge is of the cantilever-spar cable-stayed bridge type, which is a modern variation of the cable-stayed bridge type. This means that the entire bridge has only one single pylon, and the rest of the weight is counterbalanced by thirteen lengths of cables. However, its purpose was to serve not properly as a piece of structural art, but rather as a monument.

Octávio Frias de Oliveira Bridge

Located over the Pinheiros River in the south area of São Paulo, Brazil, this cable-stayed bridge is 138 m tall, and is named after the Brazilian businessman Octávio Frias de Oliveira, who turned the newspaper Folha de São Paulo into one of the most influential media organizations in Brazil. The form of the bridge deck, similar to the letter X, gives the Octávio Frias de Oliveira Bridge a very unusual form, and makes it one of the most attractive of the world, particularly at the end of December and other special occasions, when the bridge is lit to create different color effects depending on the time of the year.

Image courtesy of alh1 at flickr.com (Millau Viaduct)

Millau Viaduct

Usually considered as one of the most important engineering achievements of all time, the Millau Viaduct is located in the valley of the River Tarn in Millau, France. It is the tallest bridge in the world, with the summit of its mast at 343 m above the base of the entire structure. It was designed in cooperation by Norman Foster, a British architect, and Michel Virlogeux, a French structural engineer.

#kenny slaught #innovations in construction #innovative bridges #Millau Viaduct #Alamillo Bridge #Octávio Frias de Oliveira Bridge #kurilpa bridge