Citadelbridge Nijmegen

A Bridge without a visual start and end finds its way across the water.

Klant:
i-Lent (Combination Dura Vermeer/Ploegam V.O.F.)

Project:
Room for the river - Citadelbridge Nijmegen

Because of constantly changing climate and urbanization, Dutch rivers process more and more water. In order to prevent flooding in the near future, the Dutch government is changing the course of more than 30 rivers throughout the country. These measures taken along the rivers IJssel, Lek, Maas and Waal are known as ‘Room for the River’.

The river Waal not only has a sharpe bend near Nijmegen, it also forms a bottleneck. the risks of flooding has been substantial and action was neccesary.

The dike in Nijmegen-Lent was moved 350 meters into land and an ancillary channel was made. This channel creates extra capacity for the water resulting in less propulsion.

The Citadelbridge connects the newly created island Veur-Lent with the Northern Waal-shore. The bridge is for pedestrians and bycislist only.

The bridge is 200 meters long and is shaped as part of the path-structure in the river - a bridge without a visual start and end finds its way across the water, changing in height to maintain enough sailing hight for crossing boats.

In total there are 7 bridge spans each consisting of 2 main beams, interconnected with cast in place concrete cross connections and topped with precast concrete planks. The underlying supports for the bridge was also completely prefabricated in concrete. Spanbeton designed, built transported and installed the 14 main beams. Each rectangular main beam had a unique horizontal and vertical curvature and they were about 30 m long.

The bridge lies in the floodplains en will be partially under water a few days a year. (Source & Pictures: NEXTArchitects)