Invited competition design for a shared bicycle, equestrian and pedestrian bridge over the Maroondah Highway, Lilydale.
This project is an invited competition for a pedestrian bridge across the Maroondah highway in Lilydale, and reconnects fragments of the Warburton trail at the site of a former railway bridge. At the same time, it creates a gateway into Lilydale form the east as the highway begins to descend in to the city. This design responds to the broader context of the Warburton trail – its memory, its physical presence and its landscape. In doing so it forms a landmark for Lilydale on the highway with a significance and meaning related to its larger environment.
The bridge form is driven by a series of observations and reflections on that site context:
1. That the bridge is an extension of the trail from two sides – the key motivation is to rejoin a severed line.
2. That the bridge emerges from a landscape which is particularly dense on the north side and from a land form which creates a natural panorama from the middle of the highway.
3. That the bridge is the third in a series over time, and the earlier bridges spanned a much narrower opening in the highway, while carrying a much greater load.
We saw an opportunity to mark a moment, or a turning point in the centre of the bridge. So the trail bends at the centre where the axes of the trail either side intersect. The walkway rises to its highest point in the centre and the

cantilevered structure breaks there – creating an opening and a lookout at the centre.
This centre break coincides with the old contours of the narrower highway opening under the former bridges.
We thought of each bridge side as an extension of the landscape reaching out over the road. The surface there is stabilised earth, trail – like, while the centre break is steel and glass- more like a railway.
We liked the clear and straightforward structure of the rail bridges and responded to these in the truss form. The truss form rises relative to the descending walkway on the north creating the drama of a tall structure, and a response to the tall tree scape on the north edge.
The draped cladding element responds to the delicacy of the tree scape and the shaded dappled light it creates. The required two metre side enclosure is made by a woven steel mesh which wraps over and suspends out from the bridge in parts, forming a shaded enclosure in and under, and a merging of the tree landscape with the bridge. Planting is a key part of this experience and we proposed the augmentation of the copse of trees on the north bank as well as dense planting for screening between this copse and the houses to the west.
The new object would evoke bridges of various kinds- rail truss bridges but also lifting bridges over water, and rope suspended bridges. At night, the gold and silver mesh interacts with its lighting to make a more blurring, sparkling landmark.

Jury Citation AA Unbuilt Prize (Architecture Australia jan/feb07):

`This proposal, conceived for a limited competition, is delightful and convincing, presenting a challenge to the trail of lost opportunities. Except that it remains unbuilt! Lets hope that whatever was built was even better. As an entry for our consideration, it succinctly and eloquently communicated a resolved and sophisticated concept, eminently do-able and certainly desirable. The essential vision is of two paths extending to connect at a pivotal, elevated point. Conceptually, the bridge almost disappears, reduced to a brief span of timber, perhaps six metres long, and curving to connect the concrete decks which cantilever from the bush on each side of the highway. The two structures are shrouded by fine draped mesh, providing enclosure and shade, and lending a somewhat animal even bat-like carapace against the simple frame of the trusses. It is usual with pedestrian bridges for approach ramps to give abrupt access to a flat deck across the main span. Here this approach is rejected in favour of a continuous gentle climb that culminates at the central, tenuous link – the moment of arrival and departure, a place for outlook and pause.’