This article was taken from the August issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content bysubscribing online
Bridges are by definition linear. So how do you make a nonlinear one? British engineer and designer Cecil Balmond has done just that with a never-before-used bridge structure. “A building is generally solved by an engineer by taking a section and spending hours making the floor work and then extruding the section,” he says. But a nonlinear structure is a continuous object rather than a series of repeats.
Balmond runs the University of Pennsylvania’s Non-linear Systems Organization, a research group he set up five years ago to explore ways in which architecture can test and apply complex insights from mathematics and the sciences. So, when the university wanted a bridge to extend a network of pedestrian paths across railway lines into the eastern half of the campus, Balmond, now 67, was given the task of designing it.
The result is the Weave bridge. In elevation the 42-metre-long coil looks like a conventional bridge. However, its true geometry is that of two interweaving steel spirals which flare out at the supporting ends, dispensing with the need for conventional longitudinal supporting beams. Balmond’s unit is now working with mathematicians and biologists on ways of incorporating knot theory and cell structure into architectural design.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
