Tanderrum Bridge
Melbourne, Australia, 2016
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Melbourne, Australia, 2016
The new Tanderrum Pedestrian Bridge linking Birrarung Marr with the Melbourne Park sports precinct creates a major new arrival address for Melbourne Park. A ramping pathway through Birrarung Marr leads to the bridge proper and its alignment respects the established bridges and landscape topography of the park.
The project makes an important connection between the historic landscape of Speakers Corner and the outside tennis courts of Melbourne Park across Batman Avenue. Both of these existing spaces are steeped in egalitarian and democratic values – one with a history of regular citizens speaking freely on any subject; the other where a player of any ranking can pick up a tennis racquet in one of the sport’s great precincts.
The bridge design is slender, a flat steel girder structure that tapers at its edges to achieve the required span across Batman Avenue. The bridge undercroft follows the slope of the existing landscape thus eliminating low forming spaces and settles the bridge into the landscape. The lightweight filigree character of the steel structure provides the framework for a journey which branches into a connective path to Middle Terrace and provides views through toward the Yarra River, Birrarung Marr and the city.
Author: John Wardle Architects & NADAAA
Project Team: JWA (John Wardle, Stefan Mee, Mathew van Kooy, Adam Kolsrud, James Loder, Paul Bickell, Stuart Mann, Ruairi Molloy, Sharon Crabb) and NADAAA (Nader Tehrani, Arthur Chang, Parke MacDowell, Thomas Tait, Nick Safley)
Client/Owner: Major Projects Victoria
Location: Birrarung Marr and Melbourne & Olympic Park
Project duration: May 2014 – November 2016
Construction period: July 2015 – November 2016
Procurement: Two stage competition – EOI / RFT, Novated Design
Bridge length: 390 m with single spans up to 44 m
Photographs: © Kristoffer Paulsen
Short Film: COCO and MAXIMILIAN
COCO and MAXIMILIAN are a directing duo founded in 2012 in Melbourne and currently based in Milan. Coco Wertheim (Melbourne, 1991) and Maximilian Mein (Melbourne, 1991) met whilst studying Film and Television at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). After receiving their bachelors, they founded COCO and MAXIMILIAN – a production company with a strong focus on design and architecture. In 2018 they were invited to collaborate alongside Natasha Johns-Messenger on John Wardle Architects’ entry to the Biennale Architecture, Somewhere Other. The two-video works will also be exhibited at the National Gallery of Victoria as part of Melbourne Design Week 2019.
John Wardle Architects, NADAAA, “Tanderrum Bridge”, TRANSFER Global Architecture Platform, July 2019. Accessed 20 Jan 2021.
https://www.transfer-arch.com/works/tanderrum-bridge/
John Wardle Architects, NADAAA, “Tanderrum Bridge”, TRANSFER Global Architecture Platform, July 2019. Accessed 20 Jan 2021.
https://www.transfer-arch.com/works/tanderrum-bridge/