A winner has been announced for Dublin's Ballsbridge-Dodder footbridge competition. Run by the RIAI (Ireland's equivalent of Britain's RIBA), this competition was open only to Irish architects aged under-35, so it's no surprise that there's no mention of an engineer anywhere in the announcement. The days when a man with a calculator was required to design a bridge are clearly a thing of the past.It's hard to comment on Alan Dempsey's winning design based on the images available: it looks elegant if unspectacular, albeit in a very fetching shade of blue.
One thing about the competition that is pleasing in contrast to Britain's RIBA bridge competitions: Mr Dempsey takes home a prize of 50,000 euros, and that's even before he bills for his design fee. If only bodies in the UK would adopt such an amazingly enlightened policy!
There's a better image of this bridge now available at Archiseek. It certainly looks nice, and the visualisation has done a good job of making the pedestrian parapets seem more invisible than will actually be the case.
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