Frédéric-Back Park Footbridge

The site of the Complexe environnemental de Saint-Michel, or Frédéric-Back Park, has been under development for 20 years, continuing its slow transformation from a former landfill site into a major metropolitan park. The themes of immensity, unusualness and environmental engineering are recognized as the site’s main defining characteristics. civiliti was commissioned to draw up a preliminary design for a pedestrian and cycle bridge to create a new crossroads between the Saint-Michel and Saint-Sulpice districts.

The architectural concept for the Frédéric-Back Park footbridge is based on the park’s defining characteristics, in particular the perceptual features associated with immensity and unusualness. Through a formal and exaggerated play on the main structural span, through a variable-height master beam (which distorts the visual perspective), through the contrast between a massive column and a forest of playful columns, the structural concept is posed as an enigma, a reflection of the park’s singular landscape. As for the identity characteristics associated with environmental engineering and the elements – earth, air and water – they are addressed by the architectural components of the forest of columns that rise towards the sky and the wind, by the work of anchoring the columns to the rock, by an integrated descent and by the development of a new plaza under the footbridge.