The new Munot Bridge
Forty-two companies participated in the ideas competition for a new bridge over the Munotgraben. It was organized by the city of Schaffhausen. One of these 42 participants is the Schaffhausen-based company IHT . Markus Zimmerman, Joshua Krebs, and the IHT team had the revolutionary idea of building a bridge that isn't really a bridge at all—because it's almost invisible. This can be achieved by covering the bridge with mirrors. But how can this be visualized for the competition submission?
There's plenty of software for 3D visualization in the world of architecture. They create astonishingly realistic images of buildings, bridges, or similar structures that don't even exist yet. But in this case, the challenge was to show that the mirror coating actually made the bridge almost invisible. But how can you simulate a reflection in software so that it's realistic? That's rather difficult. In this case, a little manual effort and Photoshop will get you there:
The IHT team had the idea of building a two-meter-wide mirror module that could be hooked onto the existing Munot Bridge and moved around. The IHT employees implemented this project together with Natürlich Meister Holzart from Thayngen . Also involved in the planning were Dost Architektur GmbH, Schaffhausen , and the association "Lernende Bauen Zukunft" (Learning to Build the Future), Schaffhausen . So one morning, I stood at the Munot with my camera and tripod to photograph the module: The IHT team hung the mirror unit and moved it by almost two meters from shot to shot. Afterward, I had precisely registered individual images, which I then assembled in Photoshop and retouched any slight misalignments.
I shot the whole thing from three different positions to demonstrate that the desired effect doesn't just work from one specific angle, but that the illusion of the disappearing bridge is real from all angles. The entire team put in a lot of effort:
The final 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 a larger view):
For the one image that IHT submitted for the competition, we virtually constructed a delicate steel frame in anthracite and eliminated minor imperfections. We also added fine ribs to the mirrors. This prevents birds from flying into the bridge. This aspect 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. They opted for a more conventional solution, a delicate bridge. We think the idea of a mirror bridge is compelling. It would have been something completely new and a bit cheeky.
