The scope of this project is to design twenty (20) bridges to span over an intricate waterway system inside the greenbelt surrounding the financial island of the start-up zone in the ambitious Xiong-an New City in China. Among these twenty bridges, three are pedestrian-only bridges and others are both vehicular and pedestrian. Xiong-an is located about 100km south of Beijing and is intended as a purposely built new town to relieve the growing pain of Beijing, somewhat similar to new towns like Sejong in South Korea or King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia.

Our design divides the 20 bridges into four different zone categories according to the road system and the surrounding contexts. Zone 1 is the gateway area with the new main railway station complex and city center. Zone 2 is the main artery into the world-famous lily lake Baiyangdian National Park. Zone 3 is the quiet community park area and Zone 4 is the dedicated urban wild water theme entertainment park.

We treated each bridge within each zone as inter-connected elements and worked out the relationship among them. Each bridge is designed to work with the roadways, pathways, waterscape, and greenery and integrates with the surrounding environment.

We gave each bridge a symbolic theme based on its zone category and functional characteristics. We analyzed the plan configuration and visual view geometry to determine each bridge’s vertical profile including element height and bridge facade exposure, etc. For each bridge design, we use simulation software to further analyze the structural behavior of each structural member under the extreme design conditions of load and weather. We built detailed engineering models for each of these analyses.