Off-the-wall engineering brings out the geek — and the traveler — in me.
You get the feeling that when they were in kindergarten, the folks who designed these bridges were still playing with the Lego blocks while their classmates were down for their afternoon naps.
First, check out the Henderson Waves in Singapore, shown above. If you ever wondered what the word “whimsy” really meant, now you know.
It’s the highest pedestrian bridge in Singapore, one of a series of bridges and paved pathways that forms a nearly six-mile walk — much of it through jungle treetops — through a string of parks known collectively as the Southern Ridges. By night, hundreds of LED lights turn the Henderson Waves into the sinuous band of gold you see here.
To find all this in the middle of one of the most densely crowded cities in the world is pretty cool.
© Jpatokal
But this bridge is not quite the serpent your lying eyes are telling you it is.
The wooden bridge deck where you actually walk undulates, too, but only just. Looks like a good place to try out those new exercise shoes, doesn’t it?
(For a really good look, click on the pic!)
Add in Singapore’s tropical heat and humidity and you’ll be burning off major calories, for sure.
(Naturally, you’ll need to replenish later at one of Singapore’s famed food courts and hawker centres, with a few Tiger beers for hydration, of course. Very important, hydration…)
You’ll get even more exercise on the Python Bridge in Amsterdam. Sure wish I’d know that while I was there earlier this year.
Built in 2001, it’s a pedestrian bridge that connects Sporenburg and Borneo islands in the city, a short drive east of the Amsterdam Centraal train station. And its design is every bit as fanciful as the Henderson Waves. But the Python’s curves actually have a function. Its gentle arches allow Amsterdam boat and barge traffic to pass underneath without needing to raise and lower the bridge.
Pretty slick, no? Its design has won awards. It’s also won the affection of residents.
Kids dive into the canal from this bridge. They swing from ropes on it and drop into the water. You get the feeling this structure is one part bridge and one part neighborhood water park.
The last one, is in London, and like the others, it’s a pedestrian bridge. It’s by far the smallest and shortest of the three. And where the others are curving and sexy, it’s kind of Industrial Age-ugly.
But in some ways, it just might be the most brilliant of the three.
It’s called the Heatherwick Rolling Bridge — and that’s exactly what it does.
Also known as “the curling bridge,” it’s used to get pedestrian across a small canal in the Paddington Basin, one of those new urban high-rise collections of offices, apartments and shops popping up around the world in major cities like London.
In almost any Chinatown around the globe, you can find child’s bamboo toys that articulate like this. Thomas Heatherwick took that idea and made a bridge out of it.
Words don’t do this thing justice. Just look:
When you see things like this, you realize how endlessly creative we human beings can be. A little imagination can take you a long way in this world.
And the desire to see that imagination transforming architecture into art is taking me a long way, too.