November 26, 2011

Twisted bicycle bridge across the Vlaardingervaart

Filed under: Architecture,Bicycles by Branko Collin @ 11:58 am

Gizmodo writes:

At first glance it looks like this bridge in the Netherlands was an engineering failure […]. But this is how the architects designed and built it to look, and it works just fine.

It’s a [42 metre] pedestrian and bicycle bridge that connects the Holy-Zuid district with the Broekpolder, in the city of Vlaardingen. It was designed by the architects at West 8 and […] built by the metal workers at ABT.

Vlaardingen is a city near Rotterdam. Locals call the bridge The Wokkel, after a similarly shaped snack.

(Photo: ABT. More photos at Gizmodo and on Flickr show you how it works)

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November 14, 2011

Underwater bridge by Ro&Ad architects recreates attacker’s eye view of fort

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 8:58 am

This bridge crosses the moat to Fort de Roover in Halsteren, Noord-Brabant, which was part of a series of defences called the West Brabant Water Line.

Gizmodo writes, “it is made from sustainable Accoya wood treated with a non-toxic waterproof coating that protects it from decay, and since the moat is too shallow for boat traffic, there’s little risk of waves splashing up over the side.”

The bridge made the shortlist for the Building of the Year Award 2011 (which was ultimately won by the parking garage of the Windesheim College in Zwolle).

Water lines were defences that worked using inundation. Large tracts of lands were flooded, making them impassable to advancing armies. The West Brabant Water Line is the oldest of the country and was built in 1628. The main function of later water lines was to maintain the province of Holland as a national redoubt. The introduction of the tank in modern warfare put a stop to their use.

(Photo: ro-ad.org. See there for more photos, or follow the Gizmodo link.)

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June 18, 2011

Two hundred euro note bridge to become pedestrian crossing in Spijkenisse

Filed under: Architecture,Art,Design by Branko Collin @ 2:22 pm

As we wrote a couple of days ago, Robin Stam is making real bridges of the fictional ones you can find on the euro banknotes. His playground is a new neighbourhood in Spijkenisse near Rotterdam (bordering the Oude Maas river) called ‘t Land (the Land), which is still very much under development.

Robin gladly answered a few of our questions:

The first two bridges are almost finished, and the rest will be built in sync with the realisation of the neighbourhood.

The properties are sold in shifts, so unfortunately it will take a while for the project to be completed. The first two bridges will be ready at the end of September. The drawings and calculations for the other bridges are almost done. The way things are looking now the 200 euro bridge will be built at the start of next year. This will become a small pedestrian bridge, built exactly like on the banknote, meaning that the scale will be completely out of proportion.

Mark van Wijk, Joeri Horstink and I are working on a number of projects under the label Rotganzen. Currently a project of ours that is getting a lot play in the blogosphere is Party, about stylized broken party tents.

Completely off topic: an exhibit of big party tents in Dutch would be called an ‘evenementententententoonstelling’. I’d like to see other Germanic languages come up with compound words like that. I bet you cannot! I bet you are too scared!

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June 12, 2011

Real bridges to resemble the fictional ones on Euro bank notes

Filed under: Architecture,Art,Design by Branko Collin @ 4:00 pm

When Austrian engraver Robert Kalina designed the bank notes for the euro in 1996, he selected the architectural history of the bridge as his theme. Each note displays a drawing of a bridge from a certain period—but, as per the rules of the competition, Kalina could only use fictional bridges to avoid giving greater prominence to some countries.

Artist Robin Stam is now putting prominence where prominence is due—the Netherlands. He is making all seven fictional bridges very real by building them across a ditch in Spijkenisse. No word on when this will be ready.

Photo: Tumblr / Robin Stam. Via Trendbeheer.

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April 24, 2010

Dutchman ‘accidentally’ buys historic German bridge

Filed under: Architecture,History by Branko Collin @ 1:44 pm

Toni Bienemann from Arnhem is an avid collector of vintage cars, but having acquired about 40 automobiles he decided it was time for a change. And so he bought an old rail bridge in Germany—only to find out that this particular bridge is a symbol of German reunification. The Germans would get very upset, for instance, if he were to strip the thing for scrap metal.

Bienneman told Duitslandweb:

I had expected perhaps a small article in a local news paper, but not this much attention. Spiegel, ORF, Berliner Zeiting, they all called me to ask me why I bought the bridge. So I told them a story which I had made up afterwards. Originally, the bridge just seemed a nice symbol for my company, Dutchi Motors.

The Dömitz rail bridge (1873) used to be one of the longest bridges in Germany. It spanned the river Elbe, and was bombed by the alies in World War II. Afterwards, one side of the bridge became East German territory and was scrapped.

Wendland-net faithfully reproduces some of Bienneman’s spin:

“It would have been a pity if such a symbolic bridge had fallen into the wrongs hands.” This is the fear that drove Toni Bienemann […] to buy the historic construction for 305,000 euro from Deutsche Bahn in an auction.

Bienemann has now proposed the Germans come up with suggestions on how he could use the bridge in such a way that its symbolic value won’t get lost. He doesn’t need to make much profit right away, according to Duitslandweb, but if running the bridge is going to take him too much time, he will sell or lease it. Some of his own suggestions are to turn it into a bicycle bridge and run an ice-cream stand from it.

(Link: Sargasso. Photo by R. Kirchner, some rights reserved.)

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February 22, 2009

Ball, bikes and bridges

Filed under: Architecture,Automobiles,Bicycles,Sports by Branko Collin @ 7:54 pm

No news this weekend about the record attempts of Edwin van der Sar, the Dutch keeper playing for Manchester United who hasn’t conceded a goal for more than 1,300 hours. There’s nothing to report, because Van der Sar was rested during yesterday’s league game. His replacement promptly let a ball past, so that if Van der Sar keeps his net clean for at least one more minute he no longer has to share his league record with the rest of his defense.

The Flyswatter bridge we wrote about has been getting quite some attention in the blogosphere. Popular Mechanics talked a bit longer with architect Van Driel than we did and discovered some more flyswatter bridges in the Netherlands and France. But why, when mentioning in passing Dutch bicycle paths, do they link to a website about biking in Copenhagen?

Speaking of bikes in the Netherlands: people from Amsterdam use their bicycles more often than their cars. Worldchanging.com reports:

Between 2005 and 2007, Amsterdam residents rode their bicycle 0.87 times a day on average, compared to 0.84 trips by car. It was the first time on record that average bike trips surpassed cars, the research group FietsBeraad reported last month.

The ‘box of pixels’ at the top of this posting is not the lazy work of a photoshopper, but an actual office building made in 2007 by Dutch-Austrian architects Splitterwerk, and forms the headquarters for a firm called Prisma Engineering in Graz, Austria. Link: Bright.nl.

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February 1, 2009

John Körmeling designs Tilburg draw bridge

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 11:16 am

Architect John Körmeling has just won (Dutch) the pitch for a new bridge to the Pius harbour in Tilburg, beating two other agencies. His open design has a large, rotating counter weight house and big friendly illuminated letters that spell the name of the area. City hall thinks the view from the counter weight house will be “attractive.” Körmeling is the man from Eindhoven who designed and built the controversial rotating house artwork in Tilburg.

Building of the bridge should start in 2010. A small exhibition of the design will be displayed starting next Tuesday at Hoevenseweg 2 in Tilburg, near the other bridge across the harbour canal.

More imagery and background at Architectenweb (Dutch). Via Trendbeheer (Dutch). Photo John Körmeling.

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January 30, 2009

Renovate a bridge, win half a million euro

Filed under: Architecture,Automobiles by Branko Collin @ 10:56 am

Building bridges well is one thing, but how to maintain them? Rijkswaterstaat, the governmental entity concerned with building and maintaining roads and such, has offered a grand prize of 500,000 euro for the person coming up with the best scheme to renovate a bridge. Rijkswaterstaat isn’t satisfied with its own procedures. They especially don’t like the way their current methods hinder traffic.

According to the rules, anybody can participate, although if you read on you’ll discover that with anybody they mean anybody who is registered at a Dutch chamber of commerce. Another rule states that you must speak sufficient English and Dutch to be able to explain your plan. The ten best ideas will net their creators up to 100,000 euro to further develop their plans, and only one winner will get the grand prize of half a mil.

The deadline for the first round is April 10.

Link: Z24 (Dutch). Photo of the bridge to IJburg, Amsterdam by me.

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January 24, 2009

Awesome ‘flyswatter’ bridge

Filed under: Architecture by Branko Collin @ 9:25 am

This bridge, which looks likes a huge flyswatter, is in Leeuwarden. It was designed by Bruggenbureau Van Driel and built in 2000 by Ballast Nedam and BSB Staalbouw. The way I figure it, it works as an ordinary drawbridge, except when you’re in a hurry, then it’ll flip you like a pancake (which is what you’ll look like afterwards).

This is the Slauerhoffbridge, named after a local poet. I translated his “Voor de verre prinses” once, but not very well, so I’ll just link to it.

Via Jalopnik. Photo by Van Driel Bruggenbureau, used with permission. Much more (and more recent) photos after the links.

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