Back to Simplicity on Footbridge Design: Footbridge Over River Ave, in Vila do Conde, Portugal

At a time when the formal excesses and the ornamental delusions seem to be the rule in footbridge design, this paper describes the experience of “going back to simplicity” in the global conception and design of footbridges where aesthetics, environmental integration, structural efficiency and economy are naturally interrelated. Generally, the structural solution results from the confluence of a variety of factors: the distance to be overcome and the intermediate supports to be considered, the function to be performed by the bridge, the structural materials to be employed, the free widths and heights to be considered and the construction

methodology to adopt. In bridges, the structural solution is the paramount factor of its global conception, very much dictated by the location (physical and social context). Obviously, the search for efficiency results many times from the symbiosis between architectural (form) and structural ideas. For the “Vila do Conde” footbridge, both the landscape and the historical and cultural surroundings invited the conception to be as pure and clean as possible, with no structural elements above the bridge deck.

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