19 January 2010

Open thread

There's not much happening here at Pontist Towers right now (well, on the blogging front, anyway, there's a positive overload of proper work!).

So for this, my 200th blog post since starting, I thought I'd just open the comments for ... anything you want.

If you're reading this, I take it you're interested in bridges, so what's exercising your mind in the bridges world? Are there topics, designs, news I've been missing out on? Click the comments link to let me (and other readers) know!
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10 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi,
I am researching and recording an old timber beam bridge at Wollombi in country New South Wales Australia. A former version could have been a 'pigsty' or 'pigstie' bridge. Can you tell me where that term comes from? It is nothing like a pigsty to put pigs in.
Thanks,
Bixie

January 20, 2010 at 8:01 AM
The Happy Pontist said...

I can't help much, but I'd love to know the origin of the term - Google indicates it's a very local useage, with references to "pigsty bridges" in Victoria and Tasmania. There's a photo of what purports to be a pig sty bridge on the Central Australian Railway at http://cpdbear.fotopic.net/p45907930_v4.html, and models of one at http://rides.webshots.com/photo/1050218725029675836rNaoTa and http://rides.webshots.com/photo/1050218912029675836xbdijM, which suggest that it might be worth contacting some model railway enthusiasts!

January 20, 2010 at 9:23 AM
The Happy Pontist said...

Those URLs got truncated, try instead Model 1 and Model 2.

January 20, 2010 at 9:24 AM
Unknown said...

I think the images speak for themselves. Compare the images Mr. Pontist found of "pig sty" bridges to this image of a real pig sty: http://kivafellows.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/img_0548.jpg or others doing an image search. The term clearly is a description of how the bridge piers are built by stacking logs to create rectangular piers in the form of pig sties.

-Michael

January 20, 2010 at 9:31 AM
urizzato said...

I think you should talk about the results for the Harbour Bridge in Copenhagen. The winner proposal (Bednarski+Flint & Neill) as much as it is original and inventive for the opening solution, it is also quite the opposite in any other aspect.
It would be nice a quick revision of all the proposals.

Also, it would be nice to hear something about the new Lisbon Bridge (still in competition, I believe). Do you have any images concerning that?

Cheers.

January 21, 2010 at 12:09 PM
The Happy Pontist said...

I did cover the Copenhagen winners previously, and will see if I get time to cover the other entries too.

I don't have any details on Lisbon, but if anything is available online I will be happy to look at it!

January 21, 2010 at 2:36 PM
Sketch Country said...

It's interesting to note the last few thousand years of bridge building going through successive bridge types with advances in technology:

- Beam
- Arch
- Truss
- Suspension
- Cable stay

What material might unlock a new 'type', just as steel unlocked the suspension bridge?

Note: To pre-empt the pedantic, I realise that those broad themes overlap considerably - and it may of course be that in the new age of sustainability based austerity the only thing it's sensible to build is short span timber truss bridges!

January 21, 2010 at 5:15 PM
Anonymous said...

Anyone know what happened to ABC?

January 27, 2010 at 1:18 AM
The Happy Pontist said...

If by ABC you mean acceleratedbridgeconstruction.com, then the name has recently changed to tallbridgeguy.com instead.

January 27, 2010 at 11:44 PM
Anonymous said...

CMLC posted detailed reports on the 3 final bridges for St. Patrick's Island at calgarymlc.ca. There is a presentation scheduled by the designers on Feb 25, 2010 as well in Calgary. Found the info at skyscraperpage.com forums in local Calgary section.

February 11, 2010 at 3:06 AM

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