project23:Frontpage
Deployable Bridge
author(s):Sarah Jean Roberts
Summary
The RDM Harbor, a ca. 115,000 M2 plot of water in Rotterdam, Holland does not currently meet the needs of its users. Students, boat engineers, sailors, and workings who frequent the site complain of the harbor's monotony, lack of sheltered public space, and insufficient platforms for boat repair. The student population (ca. 50% of the site's demographic) has no comfortable, protected place in the harbor to hang out. There is no simple, efficient connection across the harbor, so everyone must circumnavigate the harbor on dry land. Further, the RDM Harbor lacks day and night attractions for both the local population and tourists.
The Deployable Bridge is an efficient water transit system that provides a solution for these problems of the RDM Harbor. The bridge is an adaptive, mobile mechanism which supports individual and collective transportation. The bridge maximizes inhabitable surface area on the water by providing additional public space for other buildings in the harbor. It also can support various additional user activities by acting as a water taxi, a floating bike highway, a storage vessel, a pontoon for nautical repair, or a floating leisure platform with protective shielding from the rain and sun.
As a flexible mechanism, the Deployable Bridge can connect any points in the RDM harbor, providing a crucial link between water and shoreline. The system can forge temporary links where desired, regardless of activity or function, allowing people to cross the harbour freely in a multitude of configurations. By serving as a link between different modes of transit on site (bikes, ferries, personal watercraft, etc.), the bridge supports a range of transit scales. It can function as an individual unit or as a multiple, mass configuration of units. Strengths vary according to scale.
Connections
Babel Tower, SEPAC, Food CenteRDM, Knowledge Center, Veni-Vidi, Lusthof, Floating Theater
The preceding list includes the primary project connections of the Deployable Bridge.
Additionally, the bridge can connect to any project present in the RDM Harbor.
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