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A ghostly, ear-rattling thrum emanating over the Golden Gate Bridge and throughout San Francisco’s Presidio neighborhood appears to be the result of high winds gusting through new slats on the bridge handrails.
Officials at San Francisco’s 311 call center acknowledged the issue on Twitter after it snowballed Friday night, with multiple users posting recordings of the deafening noise.
— San Francisco Chronicle
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a spokesman for the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District said that the sounds "were a known and inevitable part of a wind retrofit project" that the bridge had underwent. "As part of that larger project, engineers replaced the... View full entry
Rosannah Harding and Matthew Ostrow of HardingOstrow have won a first prize of $10,000 for the American Institute of Steel Construction's (AISC) 2020 Forge Prize. Their winning concept is a cantilevered pedestrian bridge and elevated park intended for a site in Manhattan that connects to the... View full entry
The Florida DOT (FDOT) announced last week that it will build a replacement for the pedestrian bridge that collapsed in March 2018 while under construction on the Florida International University campus in Miami. [...]
The department said that it will oversee and manage the construction of the new bridge and will incorporate the recommendations offered up by the National Transportation Safety Board [...].
— Construction Dive
The collapse of the pedestrian bridge on Florida International University's Miami campus killed six people in March 2018. View full entry
Demand for routine bridge inspections is expected to rise four times its current level to reach a market valuation of $6.3 billion by the end of 2029, according to research firm Fact.MR. A push for infrastructure modernization in the Asia-Pacific region the largest share of the market at 35%. — Construction Dive
According to Construction Dive, the need for more bridge inspections will be driven by a combination of aging infrastructure, exposure to damaging environmental conditions, and an increase in traffic volume, all of which speed up the deterioration of bridges. This is expected to raise... View full entry
The last of the 18 piers that will support the new Genoa bridge in Italy has been completed less than eight months after construction of the first foundations began. [...]
Ten of the sections of the deck that will rest on the piers have been installed so far; the current deck length of 550m is more than half of its eventual 1,067m length.
— Construction Index
43 people were killed and 14 more injured on August 14, 2018 when the nearly mile-long Morandi highway bridge in Genoa partially collapsed. Architect Renzo Piano, a Genoa native, was commissioned to design the 1,067-meter replacement bridge, and construction work started in June 2019. The... View full entry
The Providence River Pedestrian Bridge was designed by Detroit-based architecture firm inFORM Studio and structures designer BuroHappold for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT). Photo: Kroo Photography Flowing through the heart of the city, the new bridge connects two new... View full entry
China’s growing obsession with glass bridges may be coming to an abrupt end, after a series of accidents led one province to close down all its glass-bottomed attractions.
Hebei, a scenic mountainous province in northern China, has quietly closed all 32 of its glass bridges, walkways and mountain viewing platforms over the past year for safety reasons [...].
— The Guardian
Despite being breathtaking engineering marvels, China's fascination with glass-bottom bridges hasn't been without setbacks: in August 2016, the world's highest and longest glass-bottom bridge, the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bridge, opened in central Hunan province — but had to close... View full entry
Researchers at MIT have proven Leonardo da Vinci correct yet again, this time involving his design for what would have been at the time a revolutionary bridge design. Although clients rejected da Vinci's work at the time, over 500 years later, the researchers have proven that his bridge would have worked. — Popular Mechanics
Part of a proposal for Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire, da Vinci's bridge was intended to connect what is now Istanbul to Galata, a neighboring city. The proposed design spanned about 918 feet and was of masonry construction, making use of the compressive characteristics of an arc... View full entry
The plan calls for strengthening 2.4 miles of coastline from Montgomery to East 25th Streets by creating a series of flood walls, levies, reconstructing bridges at Delancey and 10th Streets, while also raising East River Park by 8 to 9 feet by placing piles of dirt on top of the existing landscape. — The Villager
New York City’s $1.45 billion East Side Coastal Resiliency project (ESCR) has been approved by the New York City Planning Commission despite community outcry over the required temporary closure of the Lower East Side’s East River Park that the project entails. The project is designed... View full entry
Is it a bridge? Is it a sculpture? Is it a museum? BIG's slick, newly opened aluminum beam twists itself to be all of the above. Located in Jevnaker, just north of Oslo, the spectacular The Twist design for Kistefos Museum (the Danish firm's first completed project in Norway) creates a new... View full entry
The Michael Maltzan Architecture (MMA)-designed Sixth Street Viaduct project in Los Angeles, a new $488 million span considered the largest bridge project in the city's history, is taking longer to complete than originally expected. Although the bridge has been under construction for over... View full entry
The sweeping structure, which spans the Grand Canal and was the first new bridge to be built in the floating city for 70 years, was designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.
But it has been dogged by controversy ever since it was unveiled in 2008.
— The Telegraph
According to The Telegraph, Santiago Calatrava has been fined €78,000, or roughly $86,000, by the city of Venice due to "negligence" involved in the design of the troubled 300-foot-long Ponte della Constituzione bridge in the city. According to the report, an Italian judge... View full entry
We want to create a resort where tourists can be entertained and enjoy sports and leisure as well as health care, by integrating innovatively the elements of leisure, recreation, stimulation, amusement and health care," said Pan Zhaofu, director of the Huangguoshu Scenic Area — CNN
According to CNN Travel, China's Guizhou Province will be home to a new walkway made of glass. Measured at 1,804 feet, the new bridge is considered to be the longest glass bridge in the world, breaking the record of another famous bridge, which is also located in China. Set to open sometime... View full entry
Morandi Bridge in the Italian city of Genoa has been demolished almost a year after its partial collapse killed 43 people. Thousands of residents were evacuated before the operation, which was over within eight seconds. Water was sprayed over the scene to reduce the dust produced by the blast. — The Guardian
The partial collapse of Genoa's nearly mile-long Morandi highway bridge on August 14, 2018 killed 43 people trying to cross the bridge at the time. A controlled explosion brought down the last two pillars this morning while the rest of the old bridge is being removed. Construction on the Renzo... View full entry
A spectacular footbridge that will link the Cornish mainland with the island fortress of Tintagel is beginning to take shape thanks to technology usually employed for challenging construction projects in the Swiss Alps. [...]
The 70-metre-long bridge is to comprise of two cantilevers, one reaching out from the mainland to the island where according to legend King Arthur was conceived.
— The Guardian
Image: Ney & Partners, William Matthews Associates, Hayes Davidson, Emily Whitfield-WicksThe new Tintagel footbridge at this historically significant site in Cornwall, England was envisioned by Belgian bridge designers Ney & Partners Civil Engineers in partnership with UK architecture firm... View full entry
