In Bremerhaven and above the harbour basin there is a glass skywalk which connects the crowd puller Klimahaus and the Columbus Center. Thereby, about 330 GEWE safe®-panes by SCHOLLGLAS of different sizes protect the pedestrians from the weather.
Bremerhaven can look back on a 200-yearold history as one of the most important seaports in Europe. For a few years and in the course of the city development the tradition-rich areas around the two oldest harbour basins are newly designed.
On a 60 hectare big area there arises an exciting mixture of offers, which are tailor-made for the modern tourism, and buildings which represent the history of Bremerhaven.
The old harbour serves as a museum surrounded by the German maritime museum and the old storage.
On the south side of the harbour basin there is moreover the Columbus Center for extensive shopping and on opposite side we have the Havenplaza as well as the Klimahaus® Bremerhaven 8° Ost.
With its different climatic zones of the earth and big aquariums presents the probably biggest tourist attraction.
The city wanted to offer its visitors a rainsafe connection between the highly visited Shopping Mall Columbus Center and the south side of the harbour basin and the entrance level of the Mediterraneos, the Klimahaus and the dike promenade.
For this reason, the old harbour and the busy Columbus Street had to be crossed in a length of more than 100 metres. The challenge was that, even though very rarely, the old harbour is still used by museum ships. Consequently, this connection had to be openable and should in no case interrupt the harbour panorama.
The general planners, the engineering office WTM ENGINEERS GmbH, Hamburg and the architectural office nps tchoban voss, Hamburg, have been inspired by the old swing bridges in the Schleusenstraße.
They designed a dynamic, curved glass tube whose middle section, mounted pylon, can rotate in an angle of 90° degrees.
The bridge is constructed as an inflexible tube and therefore bridges the huge span with only a few pillars. In the cross section, this tube is elliptical and stretches its diameter at the rotatable middle section.
The tube is constructed of a pavement panel with altogether five main girders which with a distance of 3,5 metres are connected via an elliptical crossbeam (frames).
Lengthways these frames are braced by pressure- and draw pipes which at the same time serve as subconstruction for the point-supported glazing.
The special characteristic of the glass construction for which SCHOLLGLAS delivered all the glasses consists in the fact that the bridge, from the centre of the rotation to the two riversides, is leaned in two different degrees up to a maximum of 3 %.
As the frames of the bridge - and like this the vertical edges - are however levelled out vertically, all the glasses need different sizes. Concerning the stretching middle section even trapeze-shaped panes were necessary.
For this reason SCHOLLGLAS delivered 336 differently shaped GEWEsafe ®-panes of TVG which were equipped with according boreholings for the fixture at the movable point mountings. The five middle roof-panes were on the total length processed with screen-printing to avoid a too strong insolation.
According to calculations concerning insolation and heat generation the raster is arranged asymmetrically in such a way that it follows the way of the sun and compacts towards the centre. Accordingly a homogeneous printing was impossible. Every pane had to be produced separately.
30 RWA-Lüftungsflügel in the roof ridge area of the bridge and blade windows take care of the – especially in the summernecessary ventilation and smoke extraction in case of fire. The blades are arranged over the whole length at the bottom of the bridge and their sizes follow the special geometry of the bridge.
So, as not to limit the cross section and not to interrupt the glass lightness through installations, the lighting of the bridge is realized from the ground. On both sides of the actual sidewalk, the floor consists of glass which by night is lighted from below.
For this reason SCHOLLGLAS delivered triple GEWE-safe® of TVG which is safe to walk on and processed with an all over slip-resistant (R13) screen printing.
By night the harbour is consequently spanned by a illuminating-sculpture in which bizarrely lighted figures walk around.
Object: Fußgängerbrücke Bremerhaven
General planner: WTM ENGINEERS GMBH, Hamburg/D
Architect: nps tchoban voss GmbH & Co. KG, Hamburg/D
Façade construction: Christophe Lenderoth GmbH, Bremen/D
Glass supplier: Schollglas Technik Sachsen GmbH, Nossen/OT Heynitz/D
