A competition is being held in Paris to create a concept for a new bridge across the Seine, the 38th, and some of the ideas are really overboard!
When one thinks of a bridge one pictures an endless busy stream of people and vehicles, so probably the most ingenious and unexpected concept is the one where there will be just a bunch of flying people who are daring enough to cross to the other bank by a series of trampoline leaps!
The concept, worked out by design firm Atelier Zündel Cristea, looks like three doughnuts thrown together which are really inflatable trampoline 30-meter modules. They are ring-shaped and have meshes stretched over the holes in the middle.
The Atelier Zündel Cristea’s spokesperson further explained that the unheard-of structure comprises PVC-membrane floating buoys corded together; the framework is believed to be sustainable and even-keeled. Each trampoline module is inflated with 3,700 cubic meters of gas and assumes the shape of an arch.
Set up near the Bir-Hakeim Bridge, the bizarre construction can be removed to another site, for it is easily adjustable to a wider or narrower water span.
The spokesperson said that the bridge had been conceived in this quaint fashion because the firm believed Paris has sufficient passages across the river to accommodate the necessary traffic, so a new bridge could be “a distinctive urban feature” and a tourist attraction rather than a common-type facility.
The new city feature has been designed as “a newer and more playful path across this same water” “dedicated to the joyful release from gravity as one bounces above the river”. What this “playful path” will do to one’s clothing is still to pass a severe test!
