Results Integral Design Studio "Highway Bridge”

In the winter semester 2021/2022, students under the supervision of visiting professor Martin Knight (Knight Architects, UK), Stefan Peters and Andreas Trummer designed a highway bridge with an integrated bicycle bridge over the Mur river in the southern urban area of Graz. The task linked the necessary renewal of the already existing A2 highway bridge with a bicycle bridge, planned by the City of Graz as well as Feldkirchen bei Graz and Gössendorf, as an important infrastructure link between the west and east banks of the Mur.

A special challenge in the task posed the 110kV high-voltage power line running directly above the construction site which limited the construction height to about 12 metres, with a minimum span of 75 metres over the river. The students reacted to these conditions with different design concepts: various types of cable-stayed bridges, beam bridges, truss bridges and arch bridges were created. The choice of materials for the bridge construction was up to the students, however, a conscious use of resources in terms of sustainability was required. In order to be able to develop an estimation of CO2 pollution, all students simultaneously carried out a simplified LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) analysis. This shows in figures how much CO2 the construction of the bridge is emitting during its entire lifespan - the calculations were made from the production of the raw materials (steel, concrete, etc.) to transport and construction to dismantling/dismantling and recycling or disposal.

The resulting designs were presented at the end of the semester to the guest critics Michael Kleiser (ASFINAG), Andreas Kammersberger and Gernot Hirzabauer (Province of Styria - Department of Transport and Structural Engineering) and Eva Maria Traschler, Michaela Schmuck and Helmut Spinka (City of Graz - Department of Transport Planning).