A Grassroots Bridge Design Process That Trumps The Official One

How ironic that two happenings related to the future of major bridges in Portland, one involving billions of dollars in public outlay and the other a grassroots, blog-driven effort with zero budget, came within a few days of each other last week.

First it was reported that the big new replacement bridge planned for Interstate 5 over the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington will probably have to be completely flat. As a result, practically any stylistic embellishment (or at least that rising into the air) will be quashed. The reason? A little used novelty airport Pearson Field, which is more importantly a historic aviation museum. The airstrip is across the river and just downstream from Portland International Airport, so it's not as if it's an important transportation hub. But if we want to do anything other than pave cement, apparently, we'll have to forget about it so the occasional B-17 bomber can make a fun visit.

Meanwhile, the local weblog PORT, or portlandart.net, has announced the results of a bridge design contest for a new pedestrian/light rail span over the Willamette. Even with no prizes or reward beyond the glory of winning itself, the contest has attracted some imaginative designs, as well as some practical ones. Sean Casey's, for example (above), utilizes what I believe is the existing Marquam Bridge columns as structural support for a new bridge that spreads out horizontally into a garden. Actually, if we have to keep the I-5 bridge flat for an annual P-38 fly-by, maybe this could be a way to show some creativity.

  Another entry in Port's contest (at left) was by Bill Badrick, a frequent reader and poster on this blog who has created numerous renditions of park and transit hybrid bridges. Bill won Port's 'Put Paradise On Top of a Parking Lot' award. Michael DiTullo's was more futuristic, but also seems easier to envision as a real bridge. The curve here is attractive and functional, and the suspension cables reference what is arguably Portland's nicest bridge, the St. Johns.

Congrats to Port on a very cool effort to elevate design ideas in Portland. At least if we get stuck with a slab of concrete over the Columbia, we can daydream about something better for a pedestrian/rail span here beside downtown. And as Port co-editor/writer Jeff Jahn has talked about, there are at least a couple of people in town--one a developer, one a museum head--who have personal connections to a couple of the world's greatest bridge designers, Norman Foster and Santiago Calatrava. Think we could get them to submit a couple drawings to Jeff's blog while we're at it?

Comments

[transplant]

people will take this blog more seriously if the author understood the definition of irony.

[Brian Libby]

Okay, so it's more coincidental than ironic. The author thanks you for the correction.

Hopefully the fact that one word in the author's post doesn't meet its exact definition won't so terribly appall and confuse readers like 'transplant' that they're driven away in fits of frustration over the lack of seriousness.

[ws]

A new, extremely expensive I-5 bridge doesn't seem like the best thing that could happen to Oregon or Washington. It's seems to be something more on the order of a perceived economic essential; jobs and no-sales tax purchases in Oregon for Washington residents.

After we've heard 6 billion figures just to build a functional bridge, it's kind of hard to expect that any bridge built there will expend any additional money on a bridge design with even the slightest degree of beauty or creativity. A bridge between our two states, even if it were allowed spires that could tower into the heavens, will still likely bear the reality of being an ugly, polluting gut straddling the Columbia.

Meanwhile, there's Pearson Airport, an airport facility that's been serving the public for, I think...some 100 years. Small privately owned planes fly in and out, historic aircraft on display in a nice museum. All beautiful aircraft and aircraft related activities that increasing numbers of people want to see and enjoy.

Brian Libby, have you even been to Pearson? Disrespecting it just because it interferes with options for a better looking I-5 crossing bridge is insulting. Let's face it, whatever bridge design is arrived upon to respond to new transportation needs is never going to anything close to the beauty of something like the Brooklyn Bridge. I suppose I'm thinking that a low, flat bridge sounds just fine, all things considered.

[BILLB]

Thanks to Brian and Jeff for bringing good design forward. Design is at the heart of our lives. It is not some extra one can choose not to have. There is little relationship between cost and beauty. An ugly home costs the same as a beautiful one.
We can build a bridge as
heart-stoppingly lovely as The St.John's, and
we would be fools to do less.

[Jeff Joslin]

I disagree that the high price for the most perfunctory approach precludes the likelihood that more resources could be directed to a more fitting and expressive approach. It is precisely these types of massive public improvement projects that can - and must - rise to the occassion, as the increment to achieve a more aspirational approach is a modest add relative to the overall scope of the project.

More so, in this case, there is no site or project in the region more worthy and demanding of an exemplary treatment. This is the ultimate gateway/threshold, and this project has the obligation and potential to remedy some of the indignities that have festered about this singularly signficant transitional locus.

And congrats to Baddrick, King of the Crayolas.

[Brian Libby]

WS, I have indeed been to Pearson airport. It's a lovely place, full of history and with a terrific riverfront location for small craft to come in and out of.

Oh, and I also have a soft spot for historic military aircraft. Even though I'm a liberal, my dad spent 20 years in the air force. I think it's awesome that Pearson honors that kind of legacy.

My only knock is that this nice little place that a few thousand people come to a year is less important in the grand scheme of things than the biggest bridge in the area that millions upon millions of people will use and look at for generations.

If we get a flat concrete bridge that looks like the I-205 one, I'll consider Pearson a quaint rock in the metro area's shoe.

[Double J]

thanks

The I-5 bridge has to be treated as the most important architectural/engineering project on the west coast... because it is. Let's be realistica about that fact.

A serious "name" architect is a way to keep committees and technicalities from turning the project into a massive failure of imagination. There is always room for design... but, when you spend billions there is definitely room for design. Besides it's a great site and deserves a great bridge.

[DC]

As we focus our design concerns upon the bridge, and as Vancouver grows up into a destination downtown, creating the potential for a grand gateway heading north, it will take a marvelously grand bridge to create a gateway out of the big box bog that is Jantzen Beach. Maybe we can take a lesson from Las Vegas to recall the Jantzen Beach of 60 years ago. Rollercoasters, searchlights (LEDs of course) a giant wave pool, all intertwined with Target, Starbucks, Best Buy and Hooters!

[ws]

"I disagree that the high price for the most perfunctory approach precludes the likelihood that more resources could be directed to a more fitting and expressive approach." Jeff Joslin

I really hope you're right in the instance of whatever new bridge design happens. People are going to have to really put their foot down to make that happen.

[kyle]

this might be a stupid question, but why couldn't the new bridge use similar heights to the existing bridge towers? There seems to be a precedent. Maybe it would be ideal for the airstrip to have nothing poking up, but has it been such a huge issue thus far? I would think with some conviction in design and political pressure we could use the heights of the exiting bridge towers to offer a worthy design solution that such a crossing deserves.

[Brian Libby]

Great point!

[DC]

I believe that the deck of the new bridge will be high enough to allow shipping to pass under without a lift span.

[Double J]

Agreed, the lift span has to be out of the design.

[SS]

The level of design and care we invest in our public infrastructure sets the community expectation for investment in surrounding private investment.

[Mike]

Just because the bridge is required to be relatively flat on top, does not mean that the structure has to be a boring freeway structure. I call attention to two bridges that do beautiful things below the deck:

1. The cape creek bridge:
http://cce.oregonstate.edu/about/history/mac/capecreek.htm
2. the bixby bridge:
http://www.pelicannetwork.net/bigsur.bixby.bridge.htm

Neither of these bridges is boring or staid, but I believe that they have characteristics which could be used to create quality in this location.