In the Lighspine project, sustainably reared timber forms the central component, seamlessly blending treads and risers into single monolithic milled masses that can be neatly and rapidly transported and assembled in situ. The bridge ties together a progression of timber vertebrae along a pair of curving catenary cables following a line of optimized structural efficiency.
In the proposal for the XII Venice Biennale, the vertebrae stack together under compression to form an extremely lightweight necklace of components that appear to float above the water. The catenary form describes the static weight of the bridge’s mass. The integrated lighting system then delicately mirrors real-time traffic, slowly fluctuating to make visual the force of footsteps upon it and the internal stresses in the vertebrae.