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SPECIAL SECTION: ARCHITECTURE & ENGINEERING

58 Designing For Place

Local and traditional inspiration for architectural detail

By Richard Perry

Harp Across The Channel

By Aaron Unterreiner

About The Cover

There are many bridges in Alaska, the natural consequence of our many waterways (and other geographic features, notably Hurricane Gulch at mile 139.7 of the Parks Highway). Many are beautiful, but most are better described as functional.

Not so for the John O’Connell Memorial Bridge that spans the Sitka Channel, the subject of this month’s cover. The American Society of Civil Engineers Alaska Section designated the cable-stayed bridge as an Alaska Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in September 2022. According to guest author Aaron Unterreiner of PND Engineers, “It’s a beautiful bridge, but it’s not boastful. It’s a practical piece of thoughtfully designed infrastructure that has seamlessly woven itself into Sitka’s fabric. In many ways, the O’Connell Bridge represents the zeitgeist of Alaska’s economic development over the last fifty years.”

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