Project Across - a Pedestrian Bridge for Connection

My name is Dominic Jacques, and I am currently an Incoming Freshman at Wayne State University!

This is my pedestrian bridge project!

Before embarking on this project, I had 3 questions I wanted to thoroughly investigate and answer:

What is a community?

How are communities built and maintained?

How can I contribute to the process of sustaining and improving community relations with this project?

In my mind, a community is not defined by a location, but rather a network of mutual connections between individuals. Family, friends, hobbyists, workers, and many more come together to create intricate communities with unique dynamics and relations. This is the magic of community: the human connection.

Communities are defined by the connections that are held within them; they are much more than the sum of their parts. Therefore, it is reasonable to deduce that communities are built and maintained through connection.

So now I had a goal: Build something that can help bring communities together; Something that fosters human connection.

Everything listed is important, but I would argue that the last item is the MOST important. If you're planning on starting a big community project with grandiose ideas for aiding those in need, you've got to have the passion! Get personal, think of ways you would like to improve your own community!

In my case, I was inspired to do so through the work I do teaching STEM classes, but you might have an entirely different motivation!

Helping can mean anything, so it was really important that I focused a large portion of my effort just figuring out how I could help a community with my pedestrian bridge.

So, for a moment, I envisioned what a community that needed help looked like. If human connection is the lifeblood of a community, maybe the residents are not connecting with each other. Maybe they do have excellent relationships with one another, but just lack a good place to interact with one another regularly. Maybe they are impacted negatively by larger issues; Issues as bad air quality, gentrification, or financial hardship.

Based on these ideas, I decided how my bridge was going to help a community:

It was going to offer the residents a safe and relaxing location to interact with the community and give them a reason to connect.

Yeah, now we're getting to the juicy bits! Brainstorming time!

Coming up with ideas for how exactly my pedestrian bridge was going to help the community was hard at first, but I eventually came up with a great idea for coming up with ideas.

I searched for images of bridges of different locations and styles, but instead of looking for aspects that I liked, I looked for flaws! I believe that the worth of a project is not only determined by one you have done well, but also what you have learned from mistakes made by others, and this encapsulates that very idea.

This bridge, for example, was very functional and most likely safe but did not seem aesthetically pleasing enough to define a community. It also lacked any space for personal interaction aside from basic transportation and didn't call for anyone to spend time on it. This caused me to look for examples of pedestrian bridges that gave residents a reason to spend time on or around them!

I eventually discovered this bridge, which made its space very pleasant to be in by merging natural ambiance with its design, and giving residents a place to both walk AND rest! However, bridges like these take up a great amount of space, time, and resources (which could very well do the exact opposite of our goal here). This image taught me to consider the cost of constructing the bridge as an aspect of its safety, and through that, I learned a great deal about how unhealthy construction projects can be!

Image how much dust and other particulate matter is shot into the air when designing large pedestrian bridges like this. Or how many residences and open spaces could potentially be destroyed to make it! Construction isn't quiet either! Consistent noise pollution would also be a cost of using large amounts of stone and metal as this bridge project did. This is part of how communities are damaged; development projects placed in the area without no regard for the residents can easily make it an insufferable environment to be in.

With these important details in mind, I began designing my bridge!

I’ve had experience working in TinkerCAD before, but this time I really wanted to use my knowledge to push myself toward innovation. I opted to work in TinkerCAD because I knew that the simple nature of its UI and Mechanics would be great motivation for me to find workarounds to create more complicated designs.

I began my bridge design with an arched roof, layered by protective panels underneath to protect from rain and other harsh elements. I wanted the bridge to be a place where it seemed reasonable to spend time, prompting individuals to meet with each other and form bonds with one another. The rustic style of the roof and supporting pillars was borrowed from the architecture I’ve observed in smaller towns and villages, as I wanted it to emanate a feeling of coziness to its residents.

I thought that in the event that the bridge was to be built, the materials used should be things like recycled wood and stone.

I built the pillars to be both aesthetically pleasing and functional, utilizing a combination of railing and base support to hold them up together. This reduces the chances of someone being injured by anything like structural issues.

Applying a bevel to the edge of the rectangular support pillars was just a small change, but added so much to the collective personality of the bridge! The lack of sharp corners on the pillars really helped to give the bridge a more organic feel that complimented the style of the bridge overall.

The railing contrasts with the more curved organic edges of the pillars, adding the angular railing that is characteristic of many metal pedestrian bridge projects in dense cities without making it too rough.

With these features, I had accomplished making a bridge that was pleasing to the eye, but it didn’t serve enough purpose to me just yet. I wanted to add something that would truly enhance the experience for the people living near it. So, I decided to remedy this lack of purpose by creating a section of the bridge where community residents could plant their own urban gardens as a part of the bridge.

The rectangular containers positioned at the side near the railing are meant to act as planting pots, incorporating aspects found in community gardens into the design of the bridge. I envisioned this to be an opportunity for the community to truly make this bridge their own, enabling them to participate in sustainability practices whilst also beautifying a local structure through the use of public gardening. 

The idea of public gardening and sustainability reminded me of local markets, and then I had the bright idea of adding a second layer to the bridge design.

I rarely hear of the underpass of a bridge being used beyond being a pathway allowing you to cross under a bridge. 

And then thought to myself: “Is there a way I can make an underpass that people would want to spend time under?”

(Spoiler Alert: the answer is yes!)

I eventually decided to create this underpass adorned with large stones and two main brick pillars supporting the covering structure of the bridge. I left enough space for there to be events to be held under here, things like community picnics, markets, etc. The bricks used would be recycled, and through the use of bricks, the stone could be incorporated into the actual construction process without polluting the area with the dust and noise that comes with onsite stonecutting.

Creating the rocks in particular was a bit of a challenge, but I eventually found a workaround by looking at real stones (quite proud of myself for this one)!

Large natural stones are just non-organic and organic features spliced together onto one structure, so...in theory, all I had to do was use angular surfaces like boxes and rectangular prisms to cut out parts of an organic shape like a sphere

and..

Viola! A solid stone design (excuse me for the pun...)

Now that we've modeled it, we can assemble the prototype in our slicer software!

I love it!

Even if it’s not perfect, it’s a learning experience. I’m glad that I had the chance to work on it, and I hope that someone else can learn from what I’ve done here as well!

Thank you for coming along on this creative journey with me!