TRANSPORT

BRIDGING THE GAP

A newly installed timber-and-steel bridge demonstrates the benefits of plug-and-play urbanism.

By Rachel Gallaher Photographed by Peter Molick

Earlier this summer, two popular community parks in the South Hills neighborhood of Fort Worth, Texas, became one. The green spaces were separated by a man-made creek, and residents had long wished for a way to easily connect across the 80-footwide divide.

The solution, commissioned by the City of Fort Worth’s Public Art Program and created by Portland-based designer Volkan Alkanoglu (his design was selected from more than 100 entries), is Drift, a bridge that marries public art, civic design, architecture, and infrastructure. An example of plugand-play urbanism—an emerging sustainable and affordable design strategy that proposes building infrastructural elements off site and dropping them into place—the structure was built in a warehouse in Indianapolis, trucked in, and installed.

“Bridges are usually built using scaffolding on the sides,” Alkanoglu says. “Then you build the bridge and remove the scaffolding. It’s a wasteful process, so we were trying to figure out how best to reduce both the waste and the cost.”

The sleek timber-and-steel bridge, which is 62 feet from end to end, resembles a meticulously carved canoe or the hull of a ship. Its form comprises a pathway lined with built-in benches and railings. Spanish cedar hardwood was chosen for its sustainability and the way it patinas with age.

“We focused on merging performance with aesthetics,” Alkanoglu says. “A bridge needs to get you from point A to point B, but I wanted to do a little bit more. By introducing benches, it encourages people to sit down and interact, making this more like a destination than just a simple bridge.”