From Structural Performance to Performative Structures: New Narratives in Footbridge Design

Abstract

In most cases, bridges are an integral part of a grown, long-term development of infrastructure. While for the Renaissance architects and engineers bridges were part of the general infrastructure, urban bridges have become a natural continuation of the city with its various layers of meaning. Technological advancement and scientific thought during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries brought the concept of efficiency and the domination of fabrication processes into the design of structures; whereas in the past bridges were often considered as technical devices with a clearly expressed inner logic of form, today new forms of development for structures in footbridge design—in combination with modern materials—are resulting in greater effectivity and broader functionality. In order to shape the spaces on and around bridges, the load-bearing structures are often made visible above the deck, manipulating the spatial experience either directly or through a diagrammatic articulation of the structural behavior in the arrangement of the bridge’s components. Recently there has been an intentional shift away from common perceptions of bridge design through the manipulation and dissection of structural typologies, leading to new interpretations and multilayered narratives. The aesthetic conception of the user’s perception has been shifted away from the subtle reading of a familiar structural grammar toward a more direct influence on the user through the creation of clearly expressed structural figures. The structure itself is now not only more visible and actively involved in the spatial experience but it is also designed to suggest a greater form of immediacy through its increasingly performative character. This paper reflects the changing understanding of the role of structures in the design of bridges, and examines the ways in which the strategies for contemporary footbridges can be contextualized both historically and aesthetically.