This relatively low-tech method is among a battery of tests that materials scientists are using to determine why several anchor rods securing the newest portion of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the region’s busiest, failed their earthquake inspections. The first alarms sounded in 2013, when seismic tests found 32 faulty rods. They’d been sitting in a large pool of water, corroding. — wired.com

Zhangjiajie, a scenic national park in the country's Hunan province, is set to open the world's longest and highest glass-bottomed bridge in July.

Spanning two cliffs in the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon area, it will stretch 430 meters (1,410 feet) long and 6 meters (20 feet) wide, hovering over a 300-meter (984-foot) vertical drop.

In comparison, the Grand Canyon Skywalk in the United States is 21 meters (69 feet) in length and stands 219 meters (718 feet) above the canyon floor. — cnn.com

Campaigners opposed to the planned Garden Bridge over the River Thames in London have won the right to challenge a council's approval for it.

The judicial review of Lambeth Council's decision to give planning permission for the £175m bridge will be heard in June.

Questions were raised about bridge's funding and its impact on views across the river of St Paul's Cathedral. — bbc.com

The bridge, should it be built, would be about a mile long. It would span Sinclair Inlet, connecting Bremerton and Port Orchard, about 15 miles west of Seattle. Today, it’s a 10-mile, often traffic-clogged, drive between the towns. Rep. Jesse Young, whose district includes these two towns, thinks using an old carrier or two would make a fine tourist attraction and tribute to the military. — Wired

A legal challenge is being launched in the High Court against plans to build a garden bridge over the River Thames in central London.

A south London resident claims Lambeth Council unlawfully granted planning permission for the £175m bridge.

Michael Ball, from Tulse Hill in Lambeth, fears its impact will be "devastating".

Lambeth Council said the bridge would potentially benefit "both the local and wider London economy". — bbc.com

[...] the bridge will be closed at night, won't allow entry to cyclists or groups of 8 or more without prior booking, and will ocassionally be closed off for fundraising events. Right. So less a public bridge than a privately-managed tourist attraction, then. [...]

The east of London, on the other hand, could actually use another crossing, with or without limits to access — citymetric.com

A wooden catwalk based on a trail bridge, the 450-foot-long structure, which begins north of the Brooklyn promenade in Squibb Park, bounced gently as it was walked upon, delighting residents and park visitors alike. But over time, the subtle bounce — part of the design — became more pronounced, then worrisome... On Friday ... park officials said that Squibb Park Bridge, which cost $5 million, would remain closed until spring as engineers continued to study its movements. — NY Times

Tilikum Crossing is the nation's first multi-modal bridge that will be off-limits to private automobiles. It will carry MAX light rail trains (the impetus for construction) as well as Portland's streetcar line and city buses, and of course pedestrian and bike lanes on both sides—but no cars. [...]

"Transit has a huge impact on urban planning. I mean, if you look at our city, it was designed around streetcars. On some level, it has to be part of their DNA." — citylab.com

Take one voguish designer, one national treasure and one icon-hungry mayor and what do you get? A floating forest across the Thames. But can anyone actually say what the £175m garden bridge is for? — theguardian.com

Suzhou is like many Chinese cities. It has a historic core, including nine Unesco world heritage sites, as well as many beautiful gardens, waterways and temples. [...]

But Suzhou has also embarked on another fascinating project: urban mimicry. From Venetian-style “water town” districts to Dutch-style suburban living, Suzhou hosts what journalist Bianca Bosker calls “original copies”: simulations of western landmarks. The city is fast becoming China’s city of clones. — theguardian.com

Six teams of architects and landscape architects are still in the running for the 11th Street Bridge Park competition in Washington D.C. The nationwide competition is hunting for the best design to transform an old freeway bridge into D.C.'s first elevated park: the 11th Street Bridge Park. — bustler.net

Designed to be an autonomous community, the top of the bridge would serve as a pedestrian walkway with a section cordoned off for cars. Below, self-sustaining residences, shops, and leisure centers would be built into the bridges' support structures. The concept imagines residents living comfortably in the neighborhoods created within the upside-down towers, all while enjoying the view of the Calabrian countryside. — theverge.com

For 76 years, the gray steel eastern span of the Bay Bridge was cursed and reviled but mostly just taken for granted. [...]

At least two groups of artists and architects have mounted campaigns to spare some of the steel from the recyclers so that they can transform it into artworks that might include a home, a public gathering space and an Airbnb rental space - with a view of the new Bay Bridge. — sfgate.com

The results are out for the Gulf Architecture Biennial's Hormuz Bridge International Competition. The open ideas competition invited entrants to propose designs for a bridge or other connective structure to link both sides of the Hormuz Strait in the Persian Gulf.

Three winners and four honorable mentions were awarded. Eighteen additional entries will be included in the first volume of Gulf Architecture Biennial and publically displayed. — bustler.net