Double Gateway
team Sebastian Duque (CO), Spiros I Papadimitriou (GR), Roubini Makridou (GR)
Default Arch bridges are default icons due to historical, cultural and technological practice. An arch is at once a ready-made gateway and a highly efficient structural shape. How to redefine the arch so it becomes unique? On the A630, Sheffield and Rotherham are on opposite directions, leaving the one is entering in the other. How to conceive a double significant gateway?
Form We propose a 3D prominent arch. A dynamic single shape that merges span and accessing ramps and that is inclined and curved so it connects the two existing pedestrian paths in each side of the motorway. An arch whose structural properties, are exploited in enriching programmatic options: the artificial landscape generated by the inclined ground at the piers, becomes a passing-by park with simple facilities assisting recreational needs of the surrounding areas, while its suitable south-sunned surfaces are used to display a solar-panels garden, producing enough electricity for the bridge's lighting system. At the top of the arch, the distance between parapets is widened and the traffic wooden deck that protects the structure, facilitates maintenance, and suppresses clang, gets smoothly wrinkled, provoking occasional seating and lying areas suitable for sight- seeing.
Lighting We propose a double gateway; an arch with distinctive character which is emphasized by its dual lighting principle, by displaying two different identities to each gateway: the perception of the arch leading towards Sheffield is different to the perception towards Rotherham; both are unique, both are one the new double gateway arch.
lighting design Aris Kllonizakis
status open international two-stage competition "Parkway Iconic Bridge"
program footbridge – pedestrian, bicycle and horses
organized by Rotherham and Sheffield Councils
location Sheffield to Rotherham, UK
date 2007
jury Nik Randall (space Craft Architects), represantives of the promoters Rotherham and Sheffield Councils and Yorkshire Forward