Work is about to start on a pedestrian bridge between the historic centre of Alicante to the beach across a busy road, designed by Spanish achitects bgstudio.
The looping Pasarela del Postiguet is clad in translucent composite material.
Construction starts next month and should be complete by the end of this year.
Here’s some info from bgstudio:
The project is a reconstruction of a pedestrian walkway along the beach promenade in the town of Alicante.
It is connecting the beach to the fortified historical center, and it’s located at the entrance of the town which both make it an important architectural landmark in the city’s life.
Our redesign attempts to redefine the visual language of the bridge in order to bring it closer to the basic idea that the city of Alicante aspire to transmit: innovation y dynamics.
Existing structure will be enveloped in a new continuously curved skin all along the bridge to create a new abstract form.
The translucent skin is made of plastic composites based on resin and glass fibers with lightened core, and it is in constant interplay with the LED lighting system at the base that change the color tone.
The result is a unique sculptural object which constantly changes faces during the day and time of year.
Apart from its surprising appearance, the new skin material was chosen for its properties that are very suitable for this type of intervention: it is lightweight, easy to install and very high chemical and mechanical resistance.
In addition to that, LED lighting presents a significant energy saving compared to traditional city lighting, which is important statement to underline in an architectural gesture so visible to the city.
BGSTUDIO is a team of architects and designers based in Valencia. We like to think of it as a creative lab where we research the various aspects of design related to architecture and environment. Each project we take goes through an intense creative process where every member of the team contributes a different point of view based on our different backgrounds.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Very beautiful and fluid !
March 12th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Beautiful design.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Oh man, if I was a 4 year old going to the beach that curve would be unbearable! Its interesting how that element can build anticipation (at least in my imagination). If faces you toward the ocean, then turns you around. Im sure some here will say its excessive and inefficient because it doesn’t take you directly down, but I think the experience it creates is interesting… if you like that sort of thing.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Its elegance is almost guaranteed through its simplicity as a stand alone piece of architecture, though I’m not entirely convinced that it’s entirely sympathetic to its immediate environment, and because of that, I can’t decide whether I think it is successful overall or not.
But of course, the most disappointing aspect is that despite it being reminiscent of a’Jetsons-era-travelator’… one unfortunately has to actually ‘walk’ rather than be transported over it.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
The site vaguely reminds me of crossing Pacific Coast Highway from the top of the palisades down to the beach at Santa Monica…except those pedestrian bridges are definitely not ADA compliant.
I also see that the decking appears to be planks (possibly wood). This is also a big ugh factor in Gehry’s otherwise sleek Serpentine bridge in Chicago.
March 12th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Super section…lovely shape…
March 13th, 2010 at 6:50 am
that glass is gonna get super grody.
March 13th, 2010 at 7:51 am
I am disturbed about the curve, although its nice. Why do they need to curve the whole thing when it can be done straight. :))
March 13th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Like it, love it.
I’m glad that someone is making good architecture for pedestrians. More of this Dezeen! More of this designers of the world!
Why is it not straight down? Because of the slope. This is for WALKING – you lazy people.
March 13th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Sexy
March 13th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
I guess the curve is to gain 6% maximum slope on the side of the beach but it’s contradictory with the other side solved with a staircase to get to the upper street. Not designed for disabled, so quite bad, this shouldn’t be allowed by the authorities
March 13th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Bridge design fails when you resort to hiding the structure behind cladding, this could have been interesting if it was a curved monocoque but instead its just a regular box beam with a bit of bent plastic stuck on…shame
March 14th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
There’s a much more interesting footbridge by Carme Pinós in the nearby town of Petrer. It’s from like 15 years ago, but check it out anyway.
http://www.epdlp.com/fotos/pinos1.jpg
http://www.cscae.com/bienal/html/06/img/06_16.jpg
She also did the seafront promenade of nearby Torrevieja and it’s also interesting although maybe it’s not so flashy:
http://www.via-arquitectura.net/06/06-070.htm