[Image courtesy of www.arup.com]
A team of engineers from CBI member Arup recently built an Arup-designed bridge in Mixia Village in Yunnan province with student volunteers from the Kunming University of Science and Technology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
As part of Arup's ongoing collaboration with Wu Zhi Qiao Charitable Foundation, the new bridge provides safe journeys for the commuting villagers between Mixia and its surrounding villages and helps improve their livelihood. Prior to the Arup-Wu Zhi Qiao Bridge, locals often had their journeys interrupted by damages to a makeshift bamboo bridge caused by the river flooding.
To withstand the devastating floods, Arup designed a bridge with an impressive 20 metre clear span and a vertical clearance of six metres. To provide durability and longevity, the bridge is constructed out of galvanised steel with rocks and stones from around the site used as counterweights.
Commenting on the project, Freda Chu, Arup Wu Zhi Qiao's project manager, said, "To build a culturally sensitive and highly sustainable bridge, we held a company-wide design competition, and the winning scheme was adopted as the basis for detailed design.
After several site visits, the design was fine-tuned considering the on-site constructability. A small team of volunteers also travelled to steel fabrication and assembly sponsor S-couvrot's factory in Shanghai for a mock-up of the bridge assembly process to ensure smooth construction on site."
Mixia Village is located in the southern part of Yunnan province, close to the China-Vietnam border.
Please click here to read the full press release by Arup.
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