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Category 2: Civil Structures
2
Contact
Ir. Rob van Gestel, Frank Havermans
Address Leostraat 4
5615BM Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Website
Archimedes Bouwadvies BV is a structural engineering office located
in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Projects range from civil engineering
to structural engineering for new and existing buildings for educational,
industrial, residential, retail, leisure and office purposes.
After having created the structural design of the school building,
Archimedes also participated in the pedestrian bridge project team, being
responsible for the structural design of the bridge.
Owner
PlatOO / Community of Son en Breugel
Architect
Frank Havermans
General Contractor
Frank Havermans
Engineering Office
Archimedes Bouwadvies BV
Construction Period 04/2015 - 08/2015
The new primary school De Ruimte is a part of the Sonniuspark
development, an expansion of the village of Son en Breugel. In order to
create a safe connection for pedestrians between the Sonniuspark and the
school, the village and the school launched a design contest. The challenge
was to create a pedestrian bridge over an existing bicycle road. The contest
was won by international award winning sculptural artist Frank Havermans.
In their search for ways to make the 14 m span, the artist and the engineer
joined forces, resulting in a sculptural web of corten steel strips landing
on two different spots in the Sonniuspark. The only way to gain an idea of
stress and deflection was to model this structure in SCIA Engineer. The
bridge consists of corten steel strips with varying dimensions. The strips
used have a thickness of between 12 and 20 mm. The height of the strips
varies from 250 mm at the landing to 600 mm at the centre of the bridge.
The bridge is shaped like a tripod, built up as a web of welded steel strips.
The web is covered by oak flooring. SCIA Engineer proved its value by
giving insight into the stress of the steel strips and the overall deflections
of the bridge. At an early stage we started using SCIA Engineer more or
less as a sculptural tool. The results of the calculations were used in the
dialogues with the artist, after which we modified and optimized positions
and dimensions of strips in the web. Eventually this resulted in a clear and
logical structure, which stayed within budget.
Pedestrian Bridge “De Ruimte” - Son en Breugel, The Netherlands
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Archimedes Bouwadvies BV
