BRIDGE SOARS ABOVE SWAN RIVER

The Matagarup bridge – a $91.5 million project to connect Australia’s east Perth to the city’s recently built Optus Stadium – is now complete and open to the public. The pedestrian bridge, which grants access to the new 60,000-seat multi-purpose venue, comprises an undulating structure of steel forms that engage with the surrounding natural and built landscape, by creating a sequence of unfolding views and vistas. The bridge has even been compared to Sydney’s iconic harbour bridge.

England and Australia-based architects, Denton Corker Marshall, are the designers behind the project who worked with a diverse stakeholder team. The City of Perth, Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority, Swan River Trust, Public Transport Authority and Western Australia Planning Commission all worked together to realise the bridge.

“The brief was complex with an overriding aim to create an excellent and innovative urban design that reflects Perth’s ‘sense of place’ as well as being a spectacular gateway to the new Burswood Stadium,” states the architects. It has been designed to include a 70m high viewing platform above its central arch and will provide thrill-seekers with an opportunity to scale the structure and experience views over the Swan River, CBD and Optus Stadium.

“This project has been one of the most technically difficult constructions ever undertaken in WA and the local workforce has embraced the challenge and done an outstanding job,” said the transport minister in a report. The project was first announced in February 2014 when it was estimated construction would finish ahead of Optus stadium at the end of 2016.

The bridge is approximately 72 metres tall at its highest point and stretches 370 metres from bank to bank, with a steel cable-stay span of 160 metres at its centre. Its structural shape resembles two flying swans, with the bridge arches representing the wishbones. These steel components, measuring 120m long x 35m wide, were carefully transferred from the site in Burswood onto barges on the Swan River before being lifted by a mega jack for assembly.

Matagarup bridge will be an integral transport link for the 40,0000-seat Perth stadium. When it opened last year, the number of permitted visitors was capped due to limited entry routes to the stadium.