Location: Melbourne, Australia.

Architect: BKK Architects.

The Swan St Bridge Upgrade is an adaptive reuse of the existing bridge (1952) to increase its traffic capacity and improve access and safety for recreational and everyday users. It connects Melbourne’s premier Sporting/Entertainment and Botanical Gardens Precincts and is a major focus during events. It also serves as a designated route for hazardous loads and livestock carrying heavy vehicles, creating a notorious traffic bottleneck and dangerous zone for pedestrian, cyclist and vehicular conflicts. The design approach sought to provide a highly functional solution for the bridge’s improved traffic flow with an acute awareness of its import as a piece of the City’s public realm and Place. The new cantilevered SUPs are supported by a highly articulated, steel fin structure that draws directly from the bridge’s existing arched geometry, providing a series of scalloped, undulating forms in plan and elevation.

This dynamic geometry extends to each of the bridge abutments, which anchor the SUP landings into the river embankments through a series of staggered, monolithic stone forms. The abutments incorporate terraced planting beds for the treatment of water runoff and stairs connecting upper and lower embankment paths, further embedding the bridge into the surrounding topography and providing further opportunities for informal occupation. A key driver of the project was the need for delivery within an extremely tight program and within a live environment, maintaining traffic flow to the roadway, pedestrian and cyclist paths as well as on the river at all times.