Provencher_Roy has shared photos following the firm’s completion of a bridge reconstruction project in Nuns’ Island, Montreal.

The new Darwin Bridges makeover represents the first instance of Ground Glass Pozzolan (GGP), a recycled glass product developed with researchers from the Université de Sherbrooke and the City of Montreal, being used in an architectural design worldwide.

The project succeeded in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 44 tons, while using over 88,000 pounds of locally sourced recycled glass (the equivalent of 70,000 wine bottles). A green space was enacted in a void created by removing the existing central median strip, and safety lighting has been installed to prevent tunnel sensation.

“The concept was always there, but the design and construction standards of the time favored the automobile. For this project, we were therefore working in a paradoxical 1960s context, on an innovative urban project to improve the user experience, while also contending with the formal urban treatments required for road transportation,” Project Manager Jacques Rousseau explains. “Our intention therefore reconciles these two rudimentary propositions in the development of a solution that at once enhances the architectural language and fulfills safety regulations.”

The GGP developed by the Québécois team was used as an additive in the pre-cast concrete panels at a rate of 10%.  A new security clearance of 4 meters (13.1 feet) was also integrated into the newly created arching formwork, accenting the curvature of the road in order to express a structural language that the firm says “elegantly conveys a sense of movement” across the entire 37-meter (121.3-foot) span.

“It’s important to recognize the original value of the project, a residential mandate on Nuns’ Island offering an innovative urban life experience addressing the pedestrian-automobile hierarchy. We were able to breathe new life into a beautiful idea from the 1960s, by enhancing its architectural language, physical application, and visual appeal — following a contemporary logic,” Rousseau stated finally.

The firm also completed work on its pedestrianization of a four-lane former motor vehicle passage in the Sainte-Catherine St. West commercial district just north of Ville-Marie, Montreal, in the past calendar year.