I recently paid a visit to four interesting bridges in London ’s east end, plus a
couple more in central London ,
which I’ll cover over this and the next five posts.
The first is the Green Bridge
in Mile End, which spans the A11 Mile End Road close to Mile End underground station. It was
built in 2000 as part of a wider urban park scheme. It carries a footpath across
the highway and thus provides a key link in a wider pathway running north to
south through Mile
End Park .
The conventional solution would have been
the sort of bland pedestrian bridge which blights so many cityscapes, an
identikit steel truss or concrete beam just wide enough to carry a walkway and
cycle path. At Mile End, the designers, CZWG Architects and Mott MacDonald, came up with a concept which I think
may be unique in the UK .
Instead of simply carrying the pathway across the road, the landscape of the
park is also continued.
The bridge spans 30 metres and is approximately 24 metres
wide, with the path bordered on both sides by large areas of planting. These
were being renewed at the time when I visited - it presents a fairly barren scene right now, but if you visit one of the various links at the foot of this post (or go to the designers' websites), you can see it in its more "fully clothed" glory.
From below, an effort has been made to
recognise the structure’s status as a land bridge rather than a footbridge – it
has a monolithic appearance, as if the soil that it carries had been solidified
and merely wrapped to prevent it against weathering. In reality, it is more
prosaic, as the glass-reinforced plastic panels which form the underside
encapsulate an essentially conventional composite steel girder span.
The bridge is supported on reinforced
concrete abutments and foundations, although these are again well disguised
with a green-tiled façade which also serves to house a number of small shops.
This façade is probably the most visually appealing element of the bridge. The
GRP soffit panels have an attractive scale-like appearance arising from the
curved layout of the bridge, but otherwise are looking somewhat careworn in places.
It’s an unspectacular structure, which is
entirely appropriate to the site and function, and therefore admirable.
Further information:
- Google maps / Bing maps
- Structurae
- Millennium Commission
- Bridge Builders (Pearce and Jobson, 2002)
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