21 June 2009

Happy 1st birthday!

I feel a little surprised at myself. It's 12 months today since I started this blog, embarked on this gephyrophilic voyage of discovery.

In that time, I've made over 125 posts altogether, including several on key topics such as bridge criticism, Swiss bridges, bridge competition debris and tensegrity bridges. I've written less than I had originally intended on new publications relevant to bridge design (books, standards etc), but there's only so much time available and I need to go with the topics that don't seem too much like hard work! I've also largely failed in my wish to visit and review more individual bridges.

So, what's coming in the next year?

I have a couple of bridge competition debris posts already lined up (for the London Millennium Bridge and River Soar Footbridge). There are a number of interesting bridges nearing completion (including the spectacular Kurilpa Bridge), and one or two designs yet to be made public (most notably Calatrava's design in Calgary). These will undoubtedly merit some further comment. I'll also be revisiting a post I made last year about the success rate of RIBA bridge design competitions - one year on, have they resolved their problems, are they a good way to get a bridge built yet?

However, the main thing I'd like is more discussion, either to suggest news to cover, or matters for future posts (email me at happypontist at googlemail dot com), or to debate any of the bridges or other issues I feature. So next time you read a post that you have an opinion on, please hit that "comments" link at the bottom of the post! More dialogue is what will keep this blog healthy for another 12 months.

5 comments:

lamkinpark said...

Happy birthday and keep up the good work!

Stuart said...

Happy Birthday!
I enjoy seeing and reading about all the different bridges you feature. (It is also refreshing to have an engineer commenting and reviewing the designs.)

Maybe in the future you can start a "Happy Pontist" bridge design competition for engineers? (It would be interesting to teach engineers how to participate in design competitions.)

Great blog!

abc

Anonymous said...

Dear Happy Pontist

Happy first birthday. You make a wonderful contribution to the social obligations of bridge engineers to the public.

Anonymous said...

Great blog, I subscribe via rss, and I always look forward to your posts.

I look forward to your critique of the Calatrava bridge in Calgary. The concept is complete (but not yet publicised) and I fear that politics will play the biggest role in getting this bridge constructed. time will tell...

Keep up the good work!

John McN said...

Discovered your Blog a few months a go and have really enjoyed your postings. Keep up the good work, look forward to the next 12 months.

Really enjoy your critique on competitions and posting of other entries, which are not always well publicized.