Kurilpa Bridge / By Cox Architecture

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Cox Architecture
Post By:Kitticoon Poopong

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

World Architecture Festival 2011 - Category Winner: TRANSPORT

Kurilpa Bridge is the world’s largest structure to be based upon the principles of ‘tensegrity’, the term coined by Richard Buckminster Fuller to describe a system of balanced compressive and tensile forces.

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

The architecture that this structure has generated has transformed Brisbane’s self-image, and its tourism identity, to that of a city of walking and cycling.

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

The strategy behind the exploration of tensegrity began at the national competition stage. It was during this stage that our architecture and engineering team recognised that conventional structures would not satisfy critical brief requirements – to span over Brisbane’s Riverside Expressway and to minimise impact on a park significant to indigenous people on the other side. Tensegrity minimised the deck thickness, thereby minimising ramp length down on that side, and it created a deceptively strong structure to span the expressway without change of system. The structure also spans the 120 metres of required navigational channel, while maintaining the scale of a pedestrian bridge.

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

A further source of inspiration for the tensegrity structure was the fact that its major contemporary exponent is an artist, the American sculptor Kenneth Snelson. The Kurilpa Bridge links the Brisbane CBD to the city’s Arts precinct, and it is frequently cited as the symbol of Brisbane’s focus upon linking art, science and engineering.

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

This relationship inspired the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art to site its newly acquired installation “We are shipwrecked and landlocked” by Scottish artist Martin Boyce on the entrance path to the bridge. The installation and the bridge, one an artwork and the other an architectural structure, both contain reference to the notion of a ‘collapsed landscape’, reinforcing the synergy between art and architecture.

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

Kurilpa Bridge is also experienced as a new piece of urban space within which are smaller urban spaces, and beyond which are other new urban spaces that the bridge has spawned. Although the bridge is in itself 360 metres long, it now connects approximately 1.5 kilometres of continuous pathway from South Brisbane, through the Arts precinct, across the river into the CBD, through a new Queensland justice precinct and city open space, known as Roma Street Parkland. This corridor is the largest unimpeded pedestrian and cycle way in Brisbane City Centre.

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

It is often said that people will create metaphors for unfamiliar structures; Kurilpa Brisbane has been no exception. Its nautical references are relatively obvious, however it has also been considered analogous to the spokes of bicycle helmets which Brisbane cyclists wear to deter diving birds, to an upside down spider, and even to a dance frozen in time. These metaphors illustrate the extent to which the public imagination has been sparked by the bridge design.

Photo © Courtesy of Christopher Frederick Jones

deck plan--drawing © Courtesy of Cox Architecture

Resolution of the bridge entailed Arup in extensive computer and physical modelling from Australia to New York and London. The modelling information was transmitted back to Brisbane where continuous adjustments were made to refine angles of members, junctions, the deck edges and the canopy which acts in pure tensegrity throughout the length of the bridge. Solar photovoltaics along the canopy roof generate all of the power required for lighting the bridge including LED lighting that changes its colour and is synchronised for major events.

downstream elevation--drawing © Courtesy of Cox Architecture

typical cross section--drawing © Courtesy of Cox Architecture

Kurilpa Bridge plays a significant role in the lives of Brisbane’s aboriginal people as it is sited (coincidentally) at the point on the river where the ancestors were able to cross the Brisbane River between the northern to southern lands. The two most relevant tribes – the Turrbal and Jagera – were continuously consulted on the bridge design, this process gaining significant endorsement.

conceptual structure diagrams 1--drawing © Courtesy of Cox Architecture

conceptual structure diagrams 2--drawing © Courtesy of Cox Architecture

Kurilpa Bridge is also the culmination of our twenty year collaboration between Cox Rayner Architects and Arup, our mutual knowledge and respect enabling conceptualisation beyond our individual thought processes.

Description from the Architects:

Video: Brisbane's new footbridge

Kurilpa Bridge / Cox Rayner Architects with Arup from ArchDaily on Vimeo.

Kurilpa Bridge from Adam Sebastian West on Vimeo.

Project Data
Project name: Kurilpa Bridge
Address: S Bank BoardwalkSouth, Brisbane, Queensland 4101, Australia
Program: Bridge
Project Year: 2009
Cost at completion of construction: $63M
Span:130 metres

Award: World Architecture Festival 2011 - Category Winner: TRANSPORT

The people

Client / Owner / Developer: Department of Public Works, Queensland, Australia

Architect: Cox Architecture-Michael Rayner
Civil Engineer: ARUP Limited
Environmental Engineer: ARUP Limited
Main Contractor: Baulderstone
Structural Engineer: ARUP Limited

Photographs: ©  Christopher Frederick Jones

Note>>Location in this map, indicate city/country but not exact address.

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