ARCVS has released details of its first-place entry for a competition to design a multifunctional bridge in Novi Sad, Serbia. Spanning the River Danube, the Elbow Shadow bridge contains a hotel and office building alongside the pedestrian walkway. The scheme combines European influences such as the Ponte Vecchio and Rialto Bridge with vernacular responses to the river channels.

The main axis of the bridge is positioned 20 metres downstream from the nearby industrial port, offering viewers an alternative experience for the viewer, from “the status of the static, centric observer to the status of the eccentric, forward-leaning observer”. The bridge’s construction system also draws influence from the old Varadin Bridge destroyed in 1999.

At the bridge, 4000 square meters of office-hotel functions sits alongside a pedestrian-cycle-infrastructure bridge, with a span of 200 metres and a width of 6 metres. Merging those commercial and infrastructural programs into a single structure has offered a 50 percent bonus in usable area, as opposed to keeping the functions separate. The infrastructural route is therefore transformed into a catering/shopping street overlooking the River Danube waterway from miles downstream.

The steel lattice, with its main span of 80 metres and a height of 10 metres, enables the creation of another level of 2500-square-metre area. The flexibility of the steel lattice is further improved by the use of prefabricated partitions and façade panels. Below, the clearance height for the waterway has determined the bridge height, at eight metres from the shores of the canal. Spiral ramps on both sides allow pedestrians and cyclists access to the crossing.

Via ArchDaily | Images by ARCVS