Sinuous link: A new pedestrian bridge elegantly and economically links two halves of a school across a busy road - Design Review - Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects designs footbridge for Plashet School, London, U.K - Brief Article

Architectural Review, The, Feb, 2002

The 67m long footbridge, by Birds Portchmouth Russum Architects, at Plashet School, Newham, London, spans a busy road and links the original school and a 1960s building to the north. Using pioneering technology, the architects have created an extraordinary structure which glows at night like ghostly vertebra and which, while protecting staff and pupils from the weather, transforms the experience of crossing the road. For the children, it is a potent and immediate introduction to modern architecture and engineering; and for the school, the bridge is an emblem, drawing attention to its presence. As a result of the bridge' traffic congestion around the school, and particularly around the pedestrian crossing over the road, has been eliminated.

Constructed of steel and translucent Teflon, the fluid form of the bridge curves around, without disturbing, a mature tree in the school grounds. At its mid-point, elevated above the road, there is a resting point for the children, with views to the outside world.

The structure consists of a steel beam, supported on steel columns, a welded steel deck, and the lightweight fabric covering stretched over a series of galvanized steel hoops. Asymmetric hoops alternate along the length of the bridge to give the fabric rigidity arid animate the canopy's form. Being sparely designed, the steel skeleton was economic to make, and the skin is cheap, durable and easy maintain. Its translucency reduced the need for artificial lighting. Detailing expresses construction and functions. Newham's shipbuilding history is echoed in the steel plate welding. Columns are of steel plate cut to a silhouette of outstretched palms; each end of the footbridge is supported on pairs of smaller silhouetted columns which splay out to frame the north school entrance.

The bridge is clamped to the two central columns by wedges driven through large hollow pins. In contrast, the lightweight galvanized steel elements -- the hoops, drainage hoppers and gargoyles -- are bolted to the carriage. Water collection provides interest on rainy days. Collected by fabric gutters, is rainwater is discharged through galvanised steel hoppers into tubular steel handrails. These descend to gargoyles which drain onto chains down the column face to gullies at the bottom. Internal illumination is provided by lights mounted in round openings at the apex of the steel hoops.

The bridge was constructed with minimum disruption to school proceedings. The main beam, fabricated in three sections in a welding yard in Doncaster, was transported to site during the summer holidays; steel hoops were laser cut directly from CAD drawings and then bolted to the three bridge sections on site. These were craned into place and spliced together over a weekend.