Highway Bridge in Sundsvall
The new highway bridge gently curves across the bay along Sweden‘s eastern coast, roughly 400 km north of Stockholm. It belongs to the expansion project of the European route E3 and closes a gap between Stockholm and the border to Finland. The decades-old goal was to improve capacity, security and environmental sustainability of the road section in order to relieve pressure on the inner city of Sundsvall. In 1995 an important step was taken by initiating an open competition that was won by the project group KRAM and their proposal „Dubbelkrum“. In 2009, following an EU-wide prequalification, the client commissioned a group of contractors and engineers with the turnkey delivery of the entire bridge project. The design relates to the city as well as the surrounding hilly landscape. Despite its tremendous dimensions and a length of 1420 m the bridge doesn‘t seem to dominate its surrounding. Instead, similar to a dialogue with the environment, it defines the bay as a new urban space. Reminiscent of a delicate uninterrupted line it connects the coastal areas and describes a curve both in plan and elevation. Three elements characterize the overall composition: massive, faceted concrete pillars rise above the water. Above them a disaggregated structure comprised of steel tubes unfolds. With seeming ease it carries the wing-shaped bridge deck. Pillar shape, steel tube structure as well as span change incrementally. The span decreases from 170 m in the centre field to 88 m along the border fields. Its slope declines towards the bridge heads while the pillar dimensions are reduced proportionally. All steel components were manufactured in southern Germany, pre-assembled in Szczecin in Poland and then transported to Sweden for completion. Based on sophisticated logistics, a European steel project was created at an impressive scale.
