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Tabi'at Bridge in Tehran - Connecting Communities with a Bridge Park

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Al Rezoski

Apr 5, 2022

Iran

Categories:

Infrastructure, Community, Parks & Recreation, Architecture

Dezeen is an architecture magazine based in London, England. This article, dated April 8, 2015, discusses the Tabi'at Bridge in Tehran, Iran, a park bridge connecting two parks and communities separated by an expressway. In Persian, Tabi'at means the bridge of nature.


Contemporary bridges are typically for automobile and rail traffic. A park bridge is a bridge with a park, pathways for non-motorized traffic (think pedestrians and bicycles), and public gathering spaces (e.g., plazas, cafes). Typically, the park may be a natural space, such as forests, gardens, grassy open spaces, or both. Park bridges are gaining in popularity worldwide to reconnect communities divided by highways and increase green space in urban areas where land is expensive to acquire.


Tabiat Bridge is a 270-meter (866 feet) long nature bridge between two parks and two communities in Tehran. Tehran is the largest metropolitan area in western Asia and has 15 million people.


The bridge was designed by Leila Araghian and Alireza Behzadi of Diba Tensile Architecture. One of my current co-workers (in Toronto, Canada) is an architect and city planner from Tehran. She explains that there was extensive community consultation for the project. The key themes developed from those meetings were:

1. Build something big enough and make it architecturally distinctive.
2. Connect communities with nature.
3. Create destination places.


Most bridges are engineered for strict efficiency and effectiveness to move motorized traffic. The destination is the road or rail system to which it connects, not the communities of people they serve. Bridges are most often straight, unadorned monoliths.


The architects carefully planned the Tabi'at bridge design and construction process. The bridge opened five years following a design competition. The bridge features three levels with overlooks, seating areas, weather protection, planting beds with trees, and cafes. The designer purposely wanted people to linger, wander, and get lost on this bridge. The bridge is very sculptural and beautiful. It is an excellent example of designing a linear park to connect two existing parks that created something greater than the sum of its parts.


The bridge has won several international design awards and is a destination for over four million people per year.


Community participation in the design process is essential to creating a community with great places. The Tabi'at bridge is a beautiful example of community participation's power in a design project. You may live in a community with a professional design review panel if you are fortunate.


No one knows their community better than the people who live there and call it home. Every community has spaces and places that don't live up to their potential because they need repurposing, redesigned, or connected. You have the vision to transform your community into a community of great places.


Think about the civic projects and infrastructure proposed in your community. How can you contribute your ideas to great placemaking? Great places are social connectors and can address other community issues like climate change and a lack of parkland. Never stop dreaming, and then talk to your neighbors and your leaders about how to make it possible.

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Catalog #:

0322.103.01.040522

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