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Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge

One of the winning projects of the Aga Khan Awards is a pedestrian bridge by Diba Tensile Architecture in Iran: a popular urban space that connects two parks.

The Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge designed by Diba Tensile Architecture, is one of the winning projects of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2016, which spans a busy highway to connect two parks in Tehran, Iran.

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, Tehran, 2014

In a city with a very dense urban fabric and mostly utilitarian architecture, more than a point of connection between two discrete green zones, the bridge is a popular gathering place for the people of Tehran, offering numerous seating areas over its three levels and restaurants at either end. Like many such green spaces within urban areas, it has come to serve as a locus of identity for the city and its inhabitants.

Multiple paths in each park were created that would lead people on to the bridge. Seating, green spaces and kiosks encourage people to linger on a site where greenery has been preserved by the minimal footprint of the bridge, whose curve offers a variety of viewing perspectives.

The tree-shaped columns that support Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge echo the forms within the adjacent parks. Their locations were also carefully chosen to minimise the need to fell trees, and where the bridge meets Abo Atash Park, the structure is left open in three places to allow the trees to grow through it, creating the sense of one continuous green space.

Given the complex curving form of the three-dimensional truss, each of the steel elements had to be cut in a different shape, and this was carried out partly by CNC machine and partly by printing the unrolled shape from the 3D model. The tubes were cut, sandblasted and painted with primer in the workshop, then delivered to the site. During the whole process of construction, the flow of traffic on the highway continued uninterrupted.

Rather than focusing on the experience of those viewing the bridge from afar, the design is characterised by an inward-looking approach: the sequences of spaces are all centred around the users. The various deck levels are connected by continuous ramps at the bridge’s southern end: the decks themselves are covered in Resysta, an imported fibre-reinforced hybrid material made from rice husks, common salt and mineral oil. The same material – which is both recyclable and weather resistant – was used for the seatings.

Tabiat Bridge

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, Tehran, 2014

Tabiat Bridge

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, Tehran, 2014

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, site plan

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, long section

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, south elevation

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, scheme

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, lower level

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, top level

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, entrance level

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, long section through ramps

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, radial beams orientation

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, radial beams orientation

Diba Tensile Architecture, Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, details

Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge, Tehran, Iran
Program: pedestrian bridge
Architects: Diba Tensile Architecture
Team: Mina Nikoukalam, Homa Soleimani, Farhad Elahi, Nader Naghipour, Kourosh Shirani, Adel Mohammadi, Masoud Momeni, Payam Golfeshan
Structural engineering: Maffeis Engineering SpA
Main contractor: Shahid Rajaei Company
Steel structure: Azar Teif Sepahan Company, Mashin Sazi Arak Company
Total lenght: 269 m
Total floor area: 7,950 sqm
Cost: 18,2 M USD
Completion: 2014

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Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge

One of the winning projects of the Aga Khan Awards is a pedestrian bridge by Diba Tensile Architecture in Iran: a popular urban space that connects two parks.

Tabiat Bridge

Tabiat Bridge

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