Landscape & Urban Design Issue 17 2016 | Page 39

On the side of Paleiskwartier, the bridge The floor heating/solar collector is The trains need such a large amount of will have more of a forest-like character. connected to a heat/cold storage unit. headroom that the entire bridge would The new green creates a new eco system in During the summer, the bridge retrieves have had to be raised by a couple of the city centre, offering room for new flora more heat from the bridge than is needed metres. The concrete compression layer and fauna. A drip feed watering system during the winter and supplies the is perforated in areas with trees. This has with detection has been installed in the surrounding district with energy. Structure created a tree bed in the steel box girders. flower beds on the bridge. The discharge The Paleisbrug is composed of various The perforations are placed strategically from the planters is fitted with an sizes of spans that run from column to and lead to a good result, both for the additional overflow pipe, so that the plants column. The columns are covered in planting scheme and the structure. The will never receive too much water. In the weather-proof steel panels, so that they concrete is not visible anywhere on the evenings, the plants, benches and paths form a whole with the spans. bridge. Four lanes, each two metres wide are lit up by LED lighting, which means the bridge is a pleasant area even after sunset. Solar collector In order to be able to keep the bridge free from ice during the winter, floor heating with a low temperature was a departure point in the design. Road salt is not an option, as it would kill the plants and affect the material. That is why Benthem Crouwel looked for a sustainable solution for the use of floor heating. The answer is to have the Paleisbrug act as a giant solar collector during the summer. The spans comprise of horizontal weatherproof steel ducts covered a concrete compression layer. The longer the span, the higher the ducts. The largest span, measuring 60 metres in length, runs across the railway track. For this span, an additional trussed joint has been created on top of the bridge deck. A structure underneath the bridge deck was not possible in this place. and alternately consisting of flower beds and paving, run across the length of the bridge. Strips, sixty centimetres wide and finished with a weather- proof steel studded sheet, run between the flower beds and paving. This where the cables, pipes and gutters for the rain water discharge from the street can be found. The setup of the bridge deck and pipework can be replaced, if necessary, without affective the main supporting structure.