Portland designer Volkan Alkanoglu has spanned a creek in Fort Worth, Texas, with a sculptural timber bridge named Drift.
The timber and steel bridge was built over a gully in the city's South Hills residential area to form a connection between two parks and communities along the Trinity River Trail system.
The Drift bridge was commissioned by Fort Worth Public Art
With no route across the waterway for seven blocks, the Fort Worth Public Art programme commissioned Alkanoglu to design a structure that could act as both infrastructure and sculpture.
His response to the brief was a bridge that used sustainable materials and aimed to have minimal impact on the site while keeping within the $375,000 (£270,000) budget.
The pedestrian bridge spans a creek, connecting a trail and two neighbourhoods The design was informed by the creek's seasonal transformation from a flowing stream to a dry, driftwood-filled basin.
Another point of reference was the innovative plywood leg splint designed by Ray and Charles Eames for soldiers wounded in the second world war, which dates back to the same era as the neighbourhood's midcentury houses.
Benches and railings are integrated into the curved wooden form
Originally intended to be made entirely of cross-laminated timber (CLT), but constrained by the budget, the final bridge structure was built around a steel armature clad in CNC- and flip-milled planks of Spanish cedar.
"Each plank was custom cut, then stack-laminated into one large, v...