Bridges aren’t just a means of passing from one place to another along a linear path; they might offer a place for strangers to converge, provide a mostly decorative function or go nowhere at all. These highly unusual bridge designs aren’t packed with cities or vertical gardens, but they do turn conventional bridge typologies on their heads, whether they’re made entirely of compressed glass sheets, built by robots or held aloft by helium balloons.

3D-Printed Steel Bridge for Amsterdam

Amsterdam startup MX3D aims to build a 3D-printed metal bridge for the center of the city, incorporating complex geometries and employing the help of multi-axis industrial robots equipped with 3D printing tools and developed software. Designer Joris Laarman says, “I strongly believe in the future of digital production and local production, in ‘the new craft,’ This bridge will show how 3d printing finally enters the world of large-scale, functional objects and sustainable materials while allowing unprecedented freedom of form. The symbolism of the bridge is a beautiful metaphor to connect the technology of the future with the old city, in a way that brings out the best of both worlds.”

Cirkelbroen Bridge by Olafur Eliasson

Stretching across a canal in Copenhagen, the new Cirkelbroen Bridge by Olafur Eliasson provides a vantage point and meeting place for pedestrians. Five posts echo the masts of ships above circular platforms, honoring the location’s nautical history. “In my art, I work with transient materials – such as wind, fog or flowing water,” says Eliasson. “It has been wonderful to have the opportunity to make a structure such as the Cirkelbroen Bridge, which embodies this transience – the changing of the weather and how this helps to create the waterfront atmosphere – but a bridge which has a long, stable life ahead of it at the same time.”

Nomanslanding Bridge

A dome on a fenced platform in the middle of the Rhine, this structure looks nothing like a conventional bridge, and it doesn’t work like one, either. A collaboration between five artists for an annual festival, ‘nomanslanding’ wasn’t made for the purpose of crossing the water, but rather uniting visitors from opposite shores in a symbolic gesture. The two halves retract into separate spaces or come together to form a united, chapel-like space of contemplation. “This walk-on installation is an attempt to bridge the divide separating us from strangers and to facilitate a meeting on common ground,” say the artists. “A space is created with a unique atmosphere in which people may reflect with each other on history, memories and experiences.

The Infinite Bridge

Created for this year’s Sculpture by the Sea festival, the ‘Infinite Bridge’ by Danish practice Gjøde & Povisgaard Arkitekter offers an entirely new way to experience the coastal landscape, jutting out over the surface of the water. Positioned just barely above the surface, the bridge has the potential to either stand several meters over the water or disappear in it altogether depending on the tide.

Helium Balloon Bridge

If crossing this bridge makes you feel nervous that the whole thing might suddenly fly away, you’re not being paranoid. Held aloft by three massive helium balloons, the only thing keeping it from drifting into the sky are a few tethers. Artist Olivier Grossetête installed the surreal featherweight attraction in Tatton’s Japanese Garden in the UK. A previous work, ‘Pont Suspendu,’ actually elevated the bridge into the air above Château Ferry Lacombe in France.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Crossing The Divide 10 Totally Atypical Bridge Designs

Some of the concepts submitted for the new Nine Elms to Pimlico pedestrian bridge in London are rather – well – pedestrian, while others are so out-there they’ve been nicknamed ‘The Flaming Mouth of Hades.’ Spanning the Thames River, the bridge will link two very different parts of the city, and must be “technically rigorous and beautiful,” cyclist-friendly and well-engineered while providing headroom for river traffic.

The competition to design the bridge has drawn dozens of entries from around the world, with a shortlist set to be announced later this month and a winner unveiled in July. The design brief notes that “how the bridge looks from afar, as it bestrides the Thames, what it feels like to cross and how it touches land on either shore – and the places that it creates around each landing point – will be critical to its success.”

Thus far, there’s only a gallery of images to look at, without any supporting information on each design, so it’s hard to tell just what we’re looking at in some cases. The City Metric called most of the entries ‘ridiculous,’ pointing out “the one which is definitely not a bridge,” “the one like a nightmarish Escher painting” and “the one that’s a spoon.”

It’s clear enough why the word Hades was invoked to describe the strange violet-and-orange creation pictured above, and it’s unclear how this design would actually function as a bridge. You have to wonder whether some of the entrants are just trolling. But some of the designs are actually quite beautiful, like the one featuring a perforated undulating canopy over a network of paths planted with greenery. However will the judges choose?

As the economic divide grows and affordable land becomes more scarce, local residents could re-take outlying spaces and even iconic local structures with self-governed parasitic micro-cities. In French architect Stephane Malka’s concept ‘P9 Ghetto-Mobile,’ a collection of rectilinear rooms in a shocking hue of red seems to float within a lace-like structure, hovering above the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris.

The modular system of private and public spaces, connected by footbridges, could be adapted for all sorts of disused urban settings. The designer describes the scheme as a ‘voluntary ghetto’ in which local residents choose to create their own miniature city with residences, offices, galleries, night clubs, shops and playgrounds, all owned and run by themselves.

Mounted on scaffolding, the structures can be quickly assembled and disassembled to move on to a new location when necessary, adapting into new configurations as the site and number of participants changes. Says Malka, “It is a voluntary ghetto, an organized community of ideas, a hood built from an appropriation of land both conquered and controlled.”

The concept calls to mind other bridge city designs, which either reinvent existing bridges like the London Bridge and abandoned stretches of highway in Italy, or create entirely new infrastructure to stretch architecture across canyons or bodies of water.

Soaring above the city streets, spanning towering skyscrapers or simply providing links between buildings at lower heights, skybridges often host gardens, observation decks and even swimming pools. More than just indoor bridges, they’re spaces from which to take in views of cities around the world, from Singapore to Copenhagen.

Marina Bay Sands Skypark, Singapore

Over 650 feet above the streets, a sky park stretches between the towers of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore, offering one of the world’s most spectacular infinity pools, which seems to pour over into the cityscape. The two-acre skylark also includes a garden, jogging paths, spas and ‘floating’ crystal pavilions. It’s cantilevered 230 feet at one end, twice the length of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Copenhagen Harbor LM Project

Designed as a gateway to the city of Copenhagen, Steven Holl’s Harbor LM project features a skybridge between two skyscrapers hovering over the water. The skybridge features prow-like public deck looking out onto the harbor, painted in bright orange and yellow to reflect off the surface of the water at night.

Bahrain World Trade Center

Three skybridges studded with wind turbines connect the two towers of the Bahrain World Trade Center, a 50-floor complex soaring 787 feet into the air. The turbines provide 11%-15% of the towers’ total power consumption, and operate 50% of the time on an average day.

Linked Hybrid, Beijing

Designed as an ‘open city within a city’ oriented around pedestrians, the Linked Hybrid complex in Beijing by Steven Holl architects is a complex of shops, offices, public roof gardens, residential towers, restaurants, schools and more, all connected to green spaces. A multi-functional series of skybridges connects the various structures from the 12th to the 18th floors, offering access to the pools, a fitness room, a cafe, a gallery and an auditorium as well as views of the city. Say the architects, “We hope the public sky-loop and the base-loop will constantly generate random relationships. They will function as social condensers resulting in a special experience of city life to both residents and visitors.”

Velo Towers YIBD

Two skyscrapers made up of stacked and rotated volumes are connected near the apex by a 30-story-high skybridge in this project in Seoul, Korea by New York-based Asymptote Architecture. The Velo Tower skybridge includes both a protected indoor viewing platform connecting the towers, and an outdoor recreation spot with gardens and fountains.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Sky Bridges 14 Aerial Structures That Span Skyscrapers

Spanning valleys and waterways, bridges perform a basic but essential function: getting us from one side to the other. But what if we expanded on that purpose, inserting everything from opera halls and vertical gardens to entire cities into the design? These 13 bridge concepts stretch beyond the boundaries of traditional design, creating bridges that are multi-purpose or simply astonishingly unusual.

Paik Nam Jun Media Bridge, South Korea

(images via: design boom)

Why should bridges be limited to traffic alone? This incredible concept for the Han River in Seoul imagines the bridge as an essential part of the city itself, filled with activity and attractions including a museum, library, and IT offices. People can even arrive via water taxi. The design, by Planning Korea, has a ‘skin’ covered in solar panels that would also function as a massive canvas for art and videos.

Wind Tunnel Bridge

(image via: treehugger)

Could bridges, which are often positioned over waterways that could act as wind corridors, be used to harvest energy? This concept by Michael Jantzen puts a footbridge to work, equipping it with a series of turbines that turn around pedestrians as they walk through it.

London Bridge as Inhabited Vertical Farm

(image via: inhabitat)

London Bridge has been reincarnated several times already, and someday soon, it will be due for a refresh. Will the 21st-century version be a vision of sustainable urban living, with solar-powered spires covered in vertical farms towering into the air? Chetwood Architects’ proposal would harness solar and wind power, collect rainwater, grow and sell food and even house markets, cafes, restaurants and residences.

Informal Bridge City for Italy

(images via: evolo)

Those afraid of heights would want to steer clear of this city-in-a-bridge concept by Ja Studio, modeled after the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Created for a contest that aims to identify a creative new use for a decommissioned highway between Salerno and Reggio Calabria in Italy, the proposal places a precarious new urban center onto existing infrastructure to not only provide amazing views but have a small impact upon the ecology of the surrounding landscape.

The Hoover Dam Re-imagined, Nevada & Arizona

(images via: evolo)

At the Hoover Dam, the sheet of water pouring over a face of simple concrete is without a doubt the main attraction. Can you imagine if instead it looked like this, with the water entering a series of containers “to engage directly with visitors?” Designer Yheu-Shen Chua gives the iconic structure a shockingly futuristic makeover that would certainly be controversial if it ever saw the light of day.

LM Harbor Gateway by Steven Holl, Copenhagen

(image via: steven holl)

First prize winner in a competition to design a new harbor entrance to the city of Copenhagen and recipient of the 2010 Progressive Architecture Award, ‘LM Harbor Gateway’ by Steven Holl Architects features two towers, each with its own cable-supported bridge, meeting in the middle in an arrow shape reminiscent of the prow of a ship. The bridge serves as a passageway between two piers and as a public overlook, and the towers contain public facilities like cafes and galleries.

CPH Arch by 3XN, Copenhagen

(image via: e-architect.co.uk)

Another proposal for the Copenhagen harbor, designed by 3XN Architects, takes an entirely different tact. As curvilinear as the Holl design is geometric, the ‘CPH Arch’ – which serves as an office tower – is a single seamless volume teeming with movement and activity.

Skyscraper Bridge Unifies the Korean Peninsula

(image via: evolo)

Peaceful reunification of the two Koreas is the dream of many – but if and when it does happen, environmentalists hope that the 50-mile buffer zone between the two countries will remain as it is. Untouched for 50 years, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is one of the world’s most pristine ecological environments and contains half of the Korean Peninsula’s wildlife. With this in mind, Korean architects Kim Sehyeon, Lee Jung Boram and Choung Yongsu have proposed a skyscraper bridge packed with meeting halls and meditation areas where citizens of both countries could meet.

The UK’s Tallest Bridge by Stephen Spence

(images via: archdaily)

This innovative design, created for the River Wear in Sundlerland, could become the UK’s tallest bridge at over 519 feet. Two curved spires cross in the air, supported by cables, in a striking silhouette that will undoubtedly become a local landmark. The status of the project is unclear, but assuming that funds are available, construction is due to start in 2012 with an anticipated completion date in 2015.

World’s Tallest Bridge in Dubai

(image via: world architecture news)

It seems that Dubai has been on a quest to produce the biggest, most jaw-dropping architectural projects in the world, so it’s no surprise that they’re currently constructing the world’s longest and tallest arch bridge. The design, by NYC firm FXFowle, seems to flout the laws of physics. It may look like the kind of design that’s destined to remain a concept forever, but the Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Bridge is due for completion in 2012. It’ll have 12 passenger lanes, a dual rail track for Dubai’s Metro Green Line and a man-made island with an opera house, and will carry some 20,000 vehicles per hour.

Solar Wind Concept

(images via: discovery)

Large-scale wind power may necessitate putting turbines in unexpected places – including, perhaps, over rivers and valleys that are often wind corridors. So even if this particular design for a wind turbine bridge – which also has a grid of solar cells embedded on the surface of the road – isn’t entirely realistic, it’s an interesting concept. The designers say the bridge could power as many as 115,000 homes.

Living Bridge Towers Over the Seine River, Paris

(image via: evolo)

Part skyscraper, part bridge, this futuristic building is perched directly on the Seine River in Paris. Designer Nicola Marchi was inspired by the inhabited bridges of Europe’s past, saying “The building is integrated with the Seine, becoming a new landmark and offering the historic center the development of the most varied programmatic elements, including recreational, cultural, residential, and performing spaces. The new bridge for the city is a living one.”

Zaha Hadid’s Sheikh Zayed Bridge, Dubai

(images via: zaha hadid)

Asymmetrical steel arches form a wave-like design, emerging from cantilevered road decks on either side, in this design for Dubai’s Sheikh Zayed Bridge by Zaha Hadid. The architect believes that the bridge, a part of a major four-line highway connecting Abu Dhabi island to the mainland, will become a destination in itself. It’s currently under construction.