Voorthuizen N303 bridges

Ring Road

Construction of a new Ring Road around the town of Voorthuizen required two new bridges across the motorway. We were asked to design both: the pedestrian bridge commissioned by the local council, the road bridge commissioned by the Gelderland Province.

slender structure

Both bridges have a slender and elegant structural design with inclined intermediate supports on either side of the Ring Road. This reduces the main span, which contributes to the bridges’ overall slender apperarance. The concrete road bridge supports refer to the local landscape as they resemble trees.  Getting these as slender as possible did require structural ingenuity: the supports were prefabricated upside down.

crash barrier

It was our aim to create a clear design connection between the two bridges. Apart from the chosen building material (steel vs concrete) and the width and span, another significant difference is that the road bridge required crash barriers. As we wanted the road bridge to be as slender and transparent as the pedestrian bridge, we analysed various options for the crash barrier both from a structural as well as a design point of view. This resulted in a freestanding crash barrier that has been placed in between bridge railing and traffic lane.

project location