Olympic bridge design competition won by Irish team

Dublin-based architects Heneghan Peng, in collaboration with Adams Kara Taylor Engineers, have won an international competition to design one of the key footbridges for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, it was announced yesterday.

Heneghan Peng's concept designs were praised by the competition jury for making the bridge a spectacle for the games by using the landscape for colour and activity and leaving a permanent legacy of two footbridges linked by a central blade-like walkway.

The footbridge will span 26m over the river Lea at a focal point between the Olympic stadium, aquatics centre and basketball arena. It will be considerably wider during the games, to accommodate large numbers of spectators, after which it will be narrowed down.

Simon Wright, the Olympic Delivery Authority's infrastructure director, described the bridge as a "striking structure in the heart of the Olympic Park" and said the winning team had impressed the jury with their understanding of the need to plan games and legacy together".

The jury also praised the proposals to open up the Carpenters Lock area, creating new meeting spaces, views and links above and below the bridge between the river tow paths, Carpenters Lock and the upper concourse in the Olympic Park.

The relatively short span of the footbridge gave Heneghan Peng scope to develop a more creative design than the usual bridge structure by using the surrounding landscape as a way of shaping the structure itself; indeed, it is more of a landscape than a bridge.

Directors Róisín Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng said they were "thrilled to have won this competition, particularly after being faced by such incredible opposition", which included McDowell+Benedetti, Softroom, Future Systems, Ron Arad and Tonkin Liu.

More than 30 bridges, temporary and permanent, will be built in and around the Olympic Park in time for the games in 2012. Further information may be obtained from the authority's website at www.london2012.com