The San Shan Bridge, designed for the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, is a stunning piece of infrastructure inspired by the Olympic rings. The bridge proposal by the Beijing- and Vienna-based firm Penda in conjunction with Arup engineers is on the shortlist for this year’s World Architecture Festival.
Penda
Penda’s Chris Precht told me in an email that the bridge was designed “as a symbol for the Olympic Games 2022,” stretching across the Gui River to connect central Beijing with mountain slopes in Zhangjiakou, where outdoor competitions will be held.
Penda
“‘Entering the rings’ on the way to the Olympic competitions, should be seen as an contextual icon for the Games,” Penda said in a project description.
Penda
Spanning 1,476 feet along the river, the bridge will include four traffic lanes, two bike lanes, and pedestrian lanes separated from traffic by a green “stripe” of trees and hedges.
Penda
Using the interlocking Olympic rings as the structure’s point of departure, the designers conceived of a main structure consisting of a series of rings that connect at their highest and lowest points, with the bridge deck suspended with steel cables in between. The result is a “DNA string-like dual helix” in bridge form, they said, adding that the design was engineered to include five times less steel than a conventional box girder bridge.
Penda
San Shan (“three mountains” in English) is a nod to the silhouette of the bridge as viewed from the side, which Penda describes as “a sequence of mountains and valleys” in “an harmonious dialog with its neighbouring green hillsides, blurring the manmade structure with the natural surrounding.”
Penda
Correction, July 26, 2016: Due to an editing error, this post’s headline originally misstated that the bridge had been built. It is a proposal.
