Warburton Trail Pedestrian Bridge

Full description

RESEARCH BACKGROUND
The project was an invited design competition commissioned by VicRoads for a pedestrian bridge across a highway on Melbourne's urban fringe. Its purpose was to reconnect a severed historical rail and horse trail, and to mark a civic presence along that highway as an entry to metropolitan Melbourne.

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION
This design for a bridge asks two questions; first: how can objects of infrastructure be integrated into their physical environment? Second: how can that object activate an interior akin to architectural space? The design unites research fields of architectural design, landscape architecture, urbanism, and engineering. Works of this type often suffer from their hybridity. In contrast, this design brings a consideration of architectural space to a program that is often treated like a road. The project's enveloping mesh skin aimed to capture a relationship with the trees and topography of its surrounding, while also providing a degree of enclosure that could encourage inhabitation. It reconciles the pragmatic infrastructure with a sculptural response to landscape. In turn, this aims to contribute a built civic presence to the environment.

RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE
The project won an Honourable Mention in the 2007 Architecture Australia Unbuilt Prize. Subsequently the project was reworked and exhibited in the Australian Pavilion at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale. It has since been presented in public lectures in Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur.