Viewing Platform in Bonsecours, Belgium

This delicate 60-m long walkway winds its way through the tree tops of a nature park, giving visitors a rare opportunity to observe the flora and fauna at eye level in this canopy of the vegetation. Carefully moulded to the terrain, but providing a level platform, the structure is designed to be translucent, through the use of metal grids and mesh, and thus intensify the impression of precariousness. The frame is a curved box girder with struts; it was prefabricated in five 12-metre sections, complete with railings, and bolted onto the columns on site. The start of this “promenade naturale” is a simple spiral staircase based around a tubular steel column of the same dimensions as the walkway supports.