Bridges news roundup

Alfenz Bridge / Marte Marte Architects
Intriguing concrete truss bridge with truss diagonals which vary geometry according to the intensity of the shear force.

Schanerloch Bridge by Marte Marte Architects
A bridge with a twist, simple and sculptural.

£6.6m footbridge swings into action
It has been a long time coming, but Hull's "iconic" swing bridge opened to the public in mid-June, with a formal opening ceremony on June 27th. It has already been dubbed a "bridge to nowhere" by one critic. Elsewhere, reasons reported for the lengthy delay in its completion include having to raise the bridge by a mere 6 inches; the bridge's "tracking system" being too small; and concern over vandalism of the windows in the (currently empty) retail unit that sits on the bridge's pivot. One press officer grumbles "personally, I hate the word iconic".

Bay Bridge troubles began with design
Lengthy story of woe blames acceptance of inappropriate bolt specification for failure of Bay Bridge bolts.

Analysis: River Torrens footbridge in Adelaide cost higher compared with Helix footbridge in Singapore
Explain please. The Torrens bridge is not architecturally spectacular, nor does it seem to be structurally anything special (indeed it looks quite dull in most the images I've seen). So how can it possibly cost more than the structurally highly complex Singapore Helix bridge? Is it all down to its "waterfall feature"?

Contemporary Bridge: Berlin
This is an "ideas" competition for a 90m long "iconic" or "landmark" footbridge in Berlin. There are financial prizes, and some glory to be garnered, but essentially it's just a bit of fluff to keep workless architects occupied for a week or two, nobody has any plans to build any such bridge.

Palo Alto to consider design contest for 101 bike bridge
An invited competition is planned to "vet many designs simultaneously in the least amount of time and funding".

Designs unveiled for Lincoln High Street level crossing bridge
It took me a little while to work out where the bridge is in this story's visualisations, but it is there. It strikes me as massive and disproportionate to the issue it tries to address.

Scotland's Oldest Bridges
This is what the internet was invented for!