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This London Bridge doesn’t fall down—it does a backbend
By Peter Reina

	Photography: © John Offenbach for stocklandmartel.com

The latest cultural adornment to a 2.1-million-square-foot mixed-use development in the Paddington region of West London is a pedestrian bridge that’s as much mobile sculpture as engineered structure. Spanning the mouth of a small dock off the Grand Union canal, the Rolling Bridge rests steady for foot traffic, but opens for boat navigation by curling upward and onto its one fixed support, like a scorpion’s tail. The 39.4-foot-long bridge, which has a steel frame and timber deck, was designed by Thomas Heatherwick Studio of London.

The structural metamorphosis from footpath to wheel has become a weekly spectacle for passersby since the bridge’s inauguration in September. The feat occurs more often when needed for navigation. “We think it’s fantastic,” says Mike Rayner, an official with Chelsfield, Paddington’s lead developer, which commissioned Heatherwick for the project.

Set among a number of Modern, understated buildings, the bridge was detailed “seriously and maturely” and is “almost boring” under normal use, says Stuart Wood, a project designer. “That heightens the element of surprise when it starts to do its action. There is a strong element of theater.”

Structure or sculpture?

Since completing his studies in 3D design at Manchester Polytechnic and later the Royal College of Art in London, 34-year-old Heatherwick has adeptly blended art, architecture, engineering, and product design in his work. Among his recent pieces is a seven-story sculpture of 150,000 glasslike beads, linked by more than half a million miles of wire, for a corporate headquarters in London.

Heatherwick says he wanted the bridge to open in a “sensuous manner, transforming itself entirely, rather than simply lifting up and out of the way.” Conventional drawbridges or retracting bridges “look broken” when opening, adds Wood. A structure that curled upon itself, on the other hand, would “look complete in both states.”

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