One imperative for growth in the pool industry is more visibility of recreational water spaces and attractive presentation of the simple joy of swimming. A pair of designers from Portland have put forward a civil engineering concept that would do just that.
In a recent competition calling for creative proposals to bridge local neighborhoods divided by Interstate 405, architects Lisa Chadbourne and Daren Doss suggested that the best way to do this is with inhabitable overpasses. Among their award-winning designs for amenable bridges was this captivating concept of a public swimming pool suspended above the roadway.
In their plan, Chadbourne and Doss proposed converting five existing overpasses in Portland into traversable civic recreation centers. Each bridge would be the structural base for various recreational facilities suspended over the roadway, including a velodrome, skate park, running track, climbing wall and the natatorium depicted here.
“As the city grows against the highway’s edges, there is an opportunity to continue the city across,” they said in their proposal. “Throughout history designers have envisioned the integration of transportation infrastructure and architecture in the form of inhabited bridges. Such bridges allow for a continuation of the fabric of the city and its movement — they act as a stitch.”
Exactly.
