Bath Quays Bridge Design Competition Winner, Architecture Contest, Architects News
Bath Quays Bridge Design Competition News
New Crossing of the River Avon, Southwest England, UK, design by Marc Mimram with Webb Yates
21 Mar 2017
Bath Quays Bridge Design News
Bath Quays Bridge Planning Permission
Design: Marc Mimram (France) with Webb Yates (UK)
Further to our article of November 2016, we inform readers that Bath Quays Bridge successfully completed its journey through the planning process and was consented last week.
Construction will begin in the next few weeks and hope that the bridge will open by the end of 2018.
Bath Quays Bridge Planning Approval
Plans to build Bath Quays Bridge have been granted planning consent.
This is the next stage of the development of Bath Quays, a new central Business District at the heart of the city centre.
Bath Quays Bridge Competition Winner:
image by architects
Bath & Northeast Somerset Council has been successful in getting funding for the project from the Cycle City Ambition Fund as the bridge will provide both cyclists and pedestrians a new crossing point between proposed development sites on Bath Quays North and Bath Quays South. It will also enhance connectivity between the riverside and Bath city centre by providing an alternative crossing point to Midland Bridge and Churchill Bridge and the busy A36/Lower Bristol Road.
The granting of planning consent is a significant moment for the city as the Bath Quays Bridge represents the first new crossing of the River Avon for over 100 years.
Councillor Patrick Anketell-Jones (Conservative, Lansdown), Cabinet Member for Economic Development, said: “The new Bath Quays Bridge across the river represents an important link in the Council’s ambition to create jobs and opportunities for local people. As part of the wider riverside regeneration, the bridge will play a key role in connecting the city centre to the north and with the existing and future communities to the south and west.”
The bridge design was selected via an international design competition, commissioned by the Council in 2015. Six short-listed designs were evaluated by a panel of experts and exhibited at the Council’s One Stop Shop and online, with visitors invited to vote for their favourite. Following the exhibition, the panel evaluated the designs and selected Paris based engineering and architectural consultancy Marc Mimram’s ‘Between History and Modernity’ bridge as the winning design. The winning design was also the public’s favourite.
Following the design competition and selection the winning team further developed the bridge plans which were shared with the public in September 2016.
Now that planning permission has been granted work is expected to begin this year with the bridge completed by Spring 2018. For more information visit: www.bathnes.gov.uk/BathQuaysBridgePlans
16 Nov 2015
Bath Quays Bridge Design Competition Winner
Bath Quays Bridge Contest Winner
Design: Marc Mimram (France) with Webb Yates (UK)
‘Between History and Modernity’
Bath Quays Bridge Design Competition winning design:
image by architects
Bath & Northeast Somerset Council has revealed the winning design for the prestigious Bath Quays Bridge competition. The competition was won by Paris-based engineering and architectural consultancy Marc Mimram, who lead a team including UK-based engineering practice Webb Yates.
A planning application for the new bridge will be submitted in 2016 with a view to construction taking place during 2017.
Marc Mimram wins international design competition for a new bridge in Bath
Bath & Northeast Somerset Council has revealed the winning design for the prestigious Bath Quays Bridge competition.
The winning design for the new pedestrian and cycle bridge is called ‘Between History and Modernity’ and was submitted by Paris-based engineering and architectural consultancy Marc Mimram, who led a team including UK-based engineering practice Webb Yates.
The new Bath Quays Bridge will link the river from Green Park Road on the north side to the Newark Works buildings on the south. It will create an attractive physical link between the new business developments planned in those two locations.
A panel made up of respected figures from the fields of bridge engineering and architecture, along with Council representatives, judged the designs. Feedback received during the exhibition of the designs also showed Marc Mimram’s team’s design to be the public’s favourite.
The six designs were unveiled as part of an international design competition run by Bath & Northeast Somerset Council. The competition began in February 2015 when it was advertised internationally to ensure a wide and expert field of applicants.
50 architecture and engineering practices from the UK and beyond applied to be considered and these were reduced to a shortlist of the six teams who submitted the above designs.
Judges were impressed with the sensitivity of the design and particularly inspired by the unusual and elegant curvature and undulations of the deck, which they think give it a playfulness that will make for a really positive public experience.
Leader of the Council, Cllr Tim Warren, said:
“The new bridge is an essential component of the Council’s plans to create a new business district, Bath Quays, in the city’s riverside quarter. A development of the scale of Bath Quays is a fantastic opportunity for Bath to reinvent a somewhat overlooked corner and connect it with the vibrant and beautiful historic city.”
Marc Mimram, Founding Director of Marc Mimram Architects and Engineers, said:
“I have built bridges all over the world but it has long been my ambition to build in the UK and I’m excited to be doing so in Bath. The city’s history and relationship with the River Avon has captivated me since my first visit and it was this that inspired our design for the bridge.
image by architects
Bridges have the capacity to transform cities, to build not just physical ties between locations, but symbolic bonds within communities. While being firmly rooted in Bath’s history and landscape this bridge connects Bath’s two new business districts and allows the city to look forwards towards future growth and transformation.”
The full list of submitted designs included AL_A’s ‘Celeste’ in second place, followed by Flint & Neill’s ‘The Kink’, Grimshaw’s ‘Bath Segmental Bridge’, Heneghan Peng’s ‘I Bow’ and Price & Myers’ ‘Zig-Zag Bridge’.
Bath Quays is comprised of two riverside development sites on either side of the river in the city centre. The developments will offer the much needed high quality office for the city’s flourishing tech and digital businesses. Linked by the new Bath Quays bridge the developments will offer an attractive and prestigious riverside location for growing companies.
The Council intends to submit a planning application for the new bridge during 2016 with a view to construction taking place during 2017.
Bath Quays Bridge Contest Jury
Judges included: Andrew Grant of Grant Associates; Jane Wernick of Jane Wernick associates; Roger Buckby of CH2MHill; Trevor Osborne of Trevor Osborne Property Group; Jo Farrar, chief executive of Bath & Northeast Somerset Council, Cllr Patrick Anketell-Jones; Simon Martin, Programme Director, Bath Enterprise Area.
Marc Mimram
Marc Mimram is an award-winning architecture and engineering practice based in Paris. The practice won the 2013 Aga Khan Prize for the Hassan II Bridge in Morocco.
Led by architect and engineer Marc Mimram, the practice has designed major infrastructure, sports and education projects around the world, from the Solférino Bridge in Paris to the Strasbourg School of Architecture.
Marc Mimram believes that architecture cannot be considered in isolation from construction and that this should always be a driver in a project’s conception as much as its execution: the project becomes a shared work, the site a place of memory, the construction a vast process of transformation.
The practice is currently working on the Panorama development in Paris, a bridge across the Danube in Linz, Austria and has recently completed the Sino Singapore Bridge in China and a training centre at Roland Garros in Paris.
www.mimram.com
Bath Quays Bridge Design Competition
Bath & Northeast Somerset Council is seeking to appoint an outstanding team to deliver the design for what will be the first new crossing of the River Avon in the World Heritage City of Bath for over 100 years.
Bath Quays Bridge Design Contest
Bath Quays Bridge will allow the fully connected development of a previously overlooked quayside district, Bath Quays, linking it to the City centre and opening up new riverside leisure and cultural opportunities alongside new commercial activities.
The regeneration of Bath Quays will form the basis for a new business location for the growing ICT, low carbon and creative sectors within the city.
The six participating design teams were led by:
– AL_A
– Flint & Neill
– Grimshaw
– Heneghan Peng
– Marc Mimram
– Price & Myers
image by architects
Commissioning a new bridge for Bath
Given its importance, and the significance of its location in a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Council has chosen an international design competition as the means to select a design for the bridge, and the competition designs have now been received from the six shortlisted design teams.
Link: http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/services/planning-and-building-control/major-projects/bath-quays-bridge
Location: Bath Quays Bridge, Green Park Road, City Centre, Bath, England, UK
Architecture in Bath
The Holburne Museum of Art Extension, Bath
Design: Eric Parry Architects
image : Smoothe
Holburne Museum Bath
James Dyson Design School, Bath
Design: Wilkinson Eyre Architects
picture from architect
Dyson School of Design Innovation
Comments / photos for the Bath Quays Bridge Design Contest – England Architecture page welcome
Website: Bath Quays Bridge