Toward 21st Century Bridge Design through Collaborative Design Process

Nowadays when structures are defined by their unique forms, innovative use of materials, context- sensitive integrity that create dramatic points, they are acknowledged to be world-class designs. It is very difficult to design bridge structures that offer so manifold rewards, which demands a new set of design environment in which multi-disciplinary experts collaborate each other. Above all the issues to address to develop new design environment, a strategic coordination among architects and engineers might play a key role to elevate modern bridge design to an artistic level. This paper has focused on how the common platform is being evolved for a true collaboration for architects and engineers toward new design paradigm for 21st century bridge design. In association with the collaboration work, a new Silkworm pedestrian bridge was studied as a representative case that was completed through a strong collaboration between artists and engineers as well as community agent. A collaborative design process was developed based on this study. It is expected that architects and engineers can get together through the proposed design platform from conception to completion to create a powerful and efficient structural system and form as well.