Scale Lane Footbridge
Scale Lane Footbridge
We engineered this opening, 50m long pedestrian bridge across the River Hull. Won in an international competition, the £7m bridge uniquely allows people to ride on the bridge while it actually rotates – a world first. It has become a destination in the city and is regularly opened as a visitor attraction. It now forms a key element of masterplanning within the city centre by enhancing the regeneration of the River Hull and – by providing a new link – its eastern river bank.
The bridge has been conceived as a place for people to inhabit and enjoy Hull’s riverscape, not just a way across it. Its form is sleek, sensuous and brightly coloured, and its curvaceous horizontality complements the verticality of the existing and proposed riverside architecture.
The bridge is unique in that it has been designed to open and close with up to 1000 people on it – a feature that acts as a tourist venue in Hull. It is also unique in that the centre of rotation is at one end of the bridge, which results in large variation in wheel loads. Both these key issues generated a wide variety of engineering challenges.
“Scale Lane bridge is not just a way of getting from A to B, but something in itself. It's not a gleaming white rebuke to its industrial surroundings but – robust and black – an extension of a place…” - Rowan Moore, writing in The Observer (2013)
Awards:
World Architecture Festival Transport Award
Civic Trust Award and Special Award for Community Impact & Engagement
AIA Excellence in Design Award
RIBA Yorkshire Award
Living Waterways Award
Structural Steel Design Award
Hull Civic Society Award
Architectural Digest ‘World’s 20 Most Impressive Pedestrian Bridges’
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Client: HCA, Yorkshire Forward, Hull CC
Architect: McDowell+Benedetti