Aarebrücke Bypass Thun Nord

In ad­di­tion to the im­me­di­ate traf­fic re­lief for the city cen­ter, the Aare bridge has the long-term urban sig­nif­i­cance of con­nect­ing the po­ten­tial of the north­ern green belt with the de­vel­op­ment area of Thun North. The 500-me­ter-long struc­ture is con­ceived as a de­sign-wise sim­ple unity and urban bracket span­ning over the het­ero­ge­neous set­tle­ment struc­ture of mil­i­tary and com­mer­cial areas. From the tight func­tional and tech­ni­cal frame­work con­di­tions above the built-up area, with partly her­itage-pro­tected wit­nesses of the mil­i­tary and ar­ma­ments in­dus­try, the con­cept of a con­tin­u­ous beam is de­vel­oped. The con­tin­u­ously and rhyth­mi­cally in­creas­ing dis­tances be­tween pil­lars up to the cross­ing of the Aare make each el­e­ment a pre­cise part of the whole. The spa­tial high­light above the river is sub­tly char­ac­ter­ized by the pro­gres­sion of spans and the fine change from flat to haunched beam. The large form, mostly per­ceived only in se­quences, is con­nected into a con­tin­uum in the urban space through the order of its parts and the rec­og­niz­abil­ity of its de­sign fea­tures - es­sen­tially the pil­lars and the cross-sec­tion.