Innovative thinking was required to transform a pedestrian and cycle path project into an iconic legacy structure, dedicated to the late great footballer Jim Stynes who, after sporting retirement, was a philanthropist, charity worker and writer.

Collaboration Aurecon, Cox Architects and landscape specialists, Oculus, created the winning design for a safer link between the City of Melbourne’s CBD and two of its significant precincts, Docklands and Southbank. The 125 metre-long new bridge extends 30 metres over the Yarra River, giving the impression of hovering over the water.

Previously, movement in this area of the city was challenged by the hazards of crossing the six-lane highway leading onto the Charles Grimes road bridge. The State Government of Victoria, in partnership with the City of Melbourne, sought to create a safer and more amenable environment by funding and managing the delivery of the project.

Aurecon’s engineering solution brought to life a horizontal catenary structural concept that is unique in Australia, and stands proudly among only a few examples in the world. To fulfil all of the functional and spatial requirements, the design pushed the boundaries in many ways, demanding the company’s engineering ‘smarts’ be combined with the highest quality materials and workmanship.

Designing the Jim Stynes Bridge as a catenary structure, extending out over the river, provided the solution to supporting a pedestrian and cyclist pathway through the limited space beneath the road bridge. However, it posed demanding challenges to engineer a slender support system to counter the downward and twisting forces.

Achieving the principle of ‘nothing more, nothing less’, the end result is beautifully elegant and simple, but involved significant structural ‘gymnastics’ in order to:

Thread the new bridge under the road bridge, high enough to be above a 1 in 10 year flood event, while providing sufficient headroom for cyclists
Comply with rigorous sustainable development principles by using high-performance and high-strength materials to achieve an extremely efficient design solution
Ensure the new structure would have minimal impact on upstream water levels in extreme flood events
Construct a perfectly circular bridge in plan for a stable structure
Align the support trusses with the structure of the overhead road bridge to accommodate the required connections

Design team uses 3D modelling

Enabling all of the design constraints to be tested at the click of a button and to evaluate and easily modify different layouts of the structure, the design team used its digital engineering expertise at 3D parametric modelling. This resolved the geometry of the structure in a matter of hours, whereas the traditional method would have taken weeks.

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