The new Munot Bridge
42 companies took part in the ideas competition for a new bridge over the Munotgraben. It was advertised by the city of Schaffhausen. One of these 42 competition participants is the company IHT from Schaffhausen. Markus Zimmerman, Joshua Krebs and the IHT team had the revolutionary idea of building a bridge that isn't actually a bridge at all - because you almost can't see it. This can be achieved by covering the bridge with mirrors. But how can you visualize this for the competition entry?
There is enough software for 3D visualizations in the architectural world. They create amazingly real images of buildings, bridges or similar structures that do not yet exist. But in this case the challenge was to show that the mirroring actually makes the bridge almost invisible. But how can you simulate a mirroring using software so that it corresponds to the facts? That is rather difficult. In this case you can get further with a little manual effort and Photoshop:
The IHT team had the idea of building a two-meter-wide mirror module so that it could be latched onto the existing Munot Bridge and moved. Together with the company Of course, master wood species from Thayngen the IHT employees implemented this. They were also involved in the planning Dost Architektur GmbH, Schaffhausen and the “Learners Building Future” association, Schaffhausen. And so one morning I stood at the Munot with a camera and tripod to photograph the module: The IHT people hung the mirror unit and moved it by almost two meters from shot to shot. Then I had precisely registered individual images, which I put together in Photoshop and retouched the slight offsets.
I took the whole thing from three different positions to show that the desired effect doesn't just work from a certain angle, but that the illusion of the disappearing bridge is a fact from all angles. The whole team has put in a lot of effort:
The end result
After carefully assembling the individual images, three image montages were created that do not simulate the effect of the mirror bridge, but rather visualize it in real life (click on the images for an enlarged view):
In the one picture that IHT submitted for the competition, we virtually constructed a delicate steel frame in anthracite and eliminated small imperfections. We also added fine ribs to the mirrors. This is so that the birds don't fly into the bridge. This point was very important and was tested beforehand with experts. The result is fascinating – the bridge that is (not) one:
Unfortunately, the project didn’t win. A more conventional solution of a delicate bridge was chosen. We find the idea of the mirror bridge impressive. It would actually have been something completely new and a bit cheeky.
