6. International Footbridge Conference 2017
Tell a Story
For the 6th International Footbridge Conference we welcome you in Berlin from September 6th to 8th 2017. As with the preceding events in Paris, Venice, Porto, Wroclaw and London, bridge designers and builders from all over the world will come together to share their views, to exchange ideas, to learn and - last but not least - to meet colleagues and friends.
Footbridges are an important component of our built environment, they can add much to the culture of building and they are exciting to work on as they bring together experts from numerous disciplines, such as civil engineers and architects, artists, landscape designers and lighting experts. This sixth conference will follow in the footsteps of earlier conferences in that the theme of structural dynamics – Dynamics and Innovation – which triggered the first conference in Paris, will be kept on the agenda. What is new to this conference is that there are two themes which we have identified as stimulating and important not only to the footbridge community, but also to designers working in many other fields of construction: Cultivate Debate and Footbridges for Berlin.
Another tradition, the triennial Footbridge Awards, will also form part of the event.
The Footbridge 2017 Awards will be organised and sponsored by Bridge design & engineering magazine and the winners will be announced at the Footbridge 2017 conference. Entries will be invited in November 2016, and all footbridge/cyclebridge projects which opened to the public or reached full completion between 1st January 2014 and 31st December 2016 will be eligible to enter.
The conference will be conducted in English, with no simultaneous translation.
Themes
1. Footbridges for Berlin
Design a footbridge for Berlin; the city is short of footbridges and yet has so many rivers and other interesting sites that are crying out for a bridge. Working with the Berlin Bridge Department we have identified six central locations that are typical of Berlin, and where footbridges are needed.
2. Cultivate debate
Tell us stories about a design of yours or the concepts, ideas, challenges behind a new material, an algorithm or a construction sequence you have used. Explain from whom or what you have learned or enter into a discourse about your own work or that of others.
3. Dynamics and Innovation
In the late 1990s some well-known pedestrian bridges suffered from excessive excitation and no immediate solutions were available. Research on pedestrian-induced vibrations rapidly became a hot topic in the engineering community and a main theme for footbridge 2002 in Paris.
