August 06, 2007
In which even land-locked lovers yearn
Same type of bridge, different type of lock. The venerable Ponte Milvio now has official sanction and a web site for the symbolic, age-old practice of locking one's love to the bridge.... Read more
August 02, 2007
A tale of two bridges
One bridge that traverses a forbidding boundary, and another bridge that joins two cities so close they are known as the Twin Cities. About the latter, failed bridge, the National Bridge Inventory reports: "Superstructure Condition: Poor." and "Bridge Sufficiency Rating: 50%". And the Minnesota Department of Transportation says, "... this bridge is considered to be a non-redundant structure. ... A key factor is that there are only four pylons holding up the arch. Any damage to any one pylon would be catastropic." Compare to the Silver Bridge across the Ohio, which failed spectacularly as a result of its single point of failure.... Read more
July 30, 2007
On houses made of paper
Shigeru Ban's innovative [re-]use of everyday materials humbles me: he has an extraordinary imagination. The paper bridge he built with Japanese and French architecture students. 27 juillet (AFP) - Japanese architect Shigeru Ban -- iconic for his use of eco-friendly, lightweight materials -- on Friday lifted the veil on a paper bridge over the Gardon River in southern France. Built half a mile from the Pont du Gard -- a section of ancient Roman bridge classed as a UN World Heritage site -- Shigeru's cardboard-tube structure is strong enough to carry 20 people at a time. Reaching over the water to a sandy islet mid-river, it opens to the public for six weeks starting on Monday, before it is dismantled for the rainy season. "It is a very interesting contrast, the Roman stone bridge and the paper bridge. Paper too can be permanent, can be strong and lasting. We need to get rid of these prejudices," Ban said. "A bridge was one of my dreams," he said, as he thanked the two dozen French architecture students and three from Japan who built the bridge as a month-long project. Weighing 7.5 tonnes, the bridge is made from 281 cardboard tubes, each 11.5 centimetres (four inches) across and 11.9 millimetres thick. The steps are recycled paper and plastic and the foundations wooden boxes packed with sand. Balloons filled with 1.5 tonnes of water were used to test its resistance, said Ban's assistant Marc Ferrand. Born in 1957 in Tokyo, Ban made a name by designing cardboard shelters for use by earthquake victims in Japan, Turkey and India and by refugees following the 1994 Rwandan genocide.... Read more
July 10, 2007
In which we observe
The New York Times has a nice (but incomplete: who designed this bridge? Who built it?) article on the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, a beautiful cable-stayed bridge near Acadia National Park.... Read more
July 02, 2007
In which the hum is coming from her
The American composer Joseph Bertolozzi is composing a "Bridge Suite" with sounds sampled from the Mid-Hudson Bridge, described in this article from The New York Times: The purpose of the test was to check not the bridge’s soundness but its sound. The rather bizarre scene on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Mid-Hudson Bridge near Poughkeepsie was part of Mr. [Joseph] Bertolozzi’s audacious plan to transform the span into an orchestra, compose a piece for it, then actually perform the work live with a small army of percussionists. It is a musical undertaking on a vast scale and one that has brought oddly harmonious marriages among the worlds of art and government, music and engineering. Mr. Bertolozzi, 48, has been meticulously harvesting a multitude of sounds from the structure: not just the cables, which on playback create woo-wooing effects or sounds like a bass guitar, but the spindles below guardrails, the rails themselves, the interior and flanges of innumerable I-beams, connecting metal plates and the grates between walkways. He sent mounds of steel pellets down the interior of a 315-foot steel tower to create a rain-stick effect. He collected clanks from the “Hudson River Estuary” sign, with its blue sturgeon emblem. An organist as well as a composer, Mr. Bertolozzi even hopes to turn large upright conduits for power lines into rough organ pipes. “I only play big instruments,” he said.... Read more
May 09, 2007
In which we remain in suspense
The New York Times has an article on bridges: bridges of the Incas. In a recent research paper, Dr. [John A.] Ochsendorf wrote: “The Inca were the only ancient American civilization to develop suspension bridges. Similar bridges existed in other mountainous regions of the world, most notably in the Himalayas and in ancient China, where iron chain suspension bridges existed in the third century B.C.”... Read more
November 13, 2006
Building Big and Rome Antics
I read through two recent books by David Macaulay, the eminent and whimsical author of books about -- well, mostly about engineering topics, but he sneaks in the odd bit of drama (or humour!), sometimes in his text, sometimes in his comfortably loose line drawings. Rome Antics and Building Big both demonstrate Macaulay's wry humour and keen grasp of the details in the big -- very big! -- picture. He tackles the massive pieces of manufactured infrastructure that we have added to the natural world: bridges, dams, tunnels, and skyscrapers, paying special attention to the planning and construction details. This becomes even more interesting when he explores ancient bridges and tunnels, as he unravels the story of their construction. His narrative, both in words and in pictures, engages the eye and the mind. Although I chuckled at the description of the several tunnels which make up The Chunnel (Northbound: Croissants. Soutbound: Crumpets.), he included pertinent yet out-of-the-way details that add depth and colour to the story of construction. Rome Antics follows a pigeon as it carries a timeless message through modern Rome. The pigeon perspective is charming, and the spare use of colour adds a remarkable piece of drama to the story.... Read more
July 31, 2006
In which we encounter a bascule debacle
Matier and Ross have a great piece on the much-delayed, over-budget Fourth Street Bridge, part of the MUNI Third Street Light Rail project -- itself much-delayed and over-budget. The Fourth Street Bridge is a Strauss Bascule bridge, named after the patent holder, Joseph Strauss.... Read more
June 14, 2006
In which the Farmer's Market has an earthquake retrofit
The prospect of the BART retrofit crowding out the feel-good Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building fascinates me. I especially like that the alternatives include placing the produce and meat stalls in the traffic lanes of the Embarcadero boulevard itself, -- a practice I have seen at Farmer's Markets worldwide. I prefer this to the prospect of having the "beyond organic" dates of Mr Robert Lauer & co. adjacent the BART retrofit machinery.... Read more
April 25, 2006
In which the center cannot hold
The old Carquinez Bridge is coming down: the original, 1927 span is being dismantled this week. The San Francisco Chronicle has photographs of the destruction and a useful chart. Caltrans will actually dismantle the bridge, cart it to Mare Island, and tear it apart for scrap. The strait is now bridged by the Al Zampa Bridge.... Read more
In which the path between the seas widens
The Panama Canal, whose history I learned through Doonesbury's Zonker, is planning a massive expansion, adding locks and widening the canal. The Panama Canal expansion will accomodate the increasingly large trans-oceanic container ships travelling through the canal -- known as "Panamax", as they are the widest possible ships to squeeze through the current locks.... Read more
February 01, 2006
In which we celebrate the arch at Ryder park
San Mateo has put some nice touches on Ryder Park, including this bridge. The Al Zampa Bridge still looks great, but the centre bridge over the Carquinez Bridge still has not come down. And driving over the Bay Bridge is exhilarting when one looks out the window and sees the new eastern span under construction, but sobering when I realise that seven years -- at least! -- will pass before I ride (or drive, realistically) over it.... Read more
January 25, 2006
In which we hand it over
I do not think that four-dollar tolls are too much to pay for driving over the Bay's Bridges (excepting, perhaps, the Hayward-San Mateo: you couldn't pay me enough to drive over that). I blame mis-management for the third rise in seven years (in 1998, the toll was $1): paying for ice-cream castles sure ain't cheap. The Golden Gate Bridge, which suffers under its own transit authority rather than the state's, will have the opportunity to raise its rates, currently starting at $5, separately. The Portland TriMet may squeeze out of a $48k lawsuit, thanks to the statue of limitations. A bus and its unruly passengers whacked a cyclist on the Hawthorne Bridge.... Read more
January 17, 2006
In which the lanes shift automagically
The " title="Offsite: New York Times">New York Times reports on the slow plan to rebuild the Tappan Zee Bridge. My favourite part of the Tappan Zee is the way that the rush-hour lanes shift: a truck drives the length of the bridge, moving rubberised lane dividers over fifteen feet.... Read more
December 15, 2005
In which it takes a bridge to do the math
The much-anticipated new bridge in Benicia is boffo over-budget: from $286 millions to $1.5 billions. Now that's a budget-overrun that should make the new Bay Bridge envious! Caltrans's site is pretty lame, unfortunately.... Read more
June 12, 2005
February 18, 2005
A Bridge Too Fat
This article in the New York Times wonderfully describes the rejuvenation of the Bronx Whitestone Bridge.... Read more
January 14, 2005
World City Photos
The World City Photos project has a beautiful photograph of Lisbon's rooftops (copy here. Many stunning user-contributed photographs of landmarks around the world. Add to this the amazing public-domain repository of the US Geological Survey and you're in photo heaven.... Read more
December 14, 2004
On {time,budget,spec}
The Millau viaduct opened today, exciting much comment: The bridge's construction costs amount to 300 million euros, with a toll plaza 6 km north of the viaduct costing an additional 20 million euros. The project required about 127,000 m2 of concrete, 19,000 metric tons of steel for the reinforced concrete, and 5000 metric tons of pre-stressed concrete for the cables and shrouds. The builder claims that the bridge's lifetime will be 120 years. It's a damn sight better than Sir Norman Foster's Millennium Bridge. Compare to the Bay Area's ongoing difficulty rebuilding a bridge damanged in 1989.... Read more
November 22, 2004
G-Cans
The G-cans project in (or underneath, to be precise) Tokyo doubles as a tourist attraction; its design intends to prevent rainy-season flooding in the city.... Read more
November 20, 2004
October 11, 2004
September 19, 2004
Ivan the Terrible
Hurricane rains hit Pittsburgh yesterday:... Read more
September 18, 2004
Path Between the Seas
Reading the grueling story of the Panama Canal, as told through David McCollough's Path Between the Seas.... Read more
September 10, 2004
September 09, 2004
See span? See span fall.
MoDOT brought traffic on the Mississippi to a halt by demolishing a bridge into the river. The plan called for destroying a single approach, not the whole bridge.... Read more
August 15, 2004
Closing the Gateway to Homestead?
"Every building in Pittsburgh can be identified by its relationship to a bridge ... " begins this article on Chiodo's Tavern, at the end of the Homestead High-Level Bridge. Chiodo's is closing.... Read more
July 26, 2004
Three Sisters
I accosted a young man with an old timbuk2 bag who was reading this on the bus, and told him, "That looks like the bridge right near where I used to live. It's either the Sixth or Seventh St. bridge,", and he accomodatingly turned to the colophon, which informed us that the cover showed one of a trio of bridges across the Allegheny River. Macmillan Technology books have a nice bridge theme going; I suspect that's the real reason I bought their LDAP book.... Read more
