Water Street Bridge, London

Designed by structural engineers COWI, Knight Architects and Eadon Consulting, Water Street Bridge has a sleek appearance and fits well into its urban surroundings. Eadon’s role was the exemplar design of the mechanical, electrical and hydraulic elements of the bridge design.

A pair of large bore hydraulic cylinders underneath the eastern end of the steel span raise the deck to allow large vessels to entering Water Square. It’s an elegant design, with the steel structure blending with the concrete approach spans and the mechanical parts only visible when the bridge is moving or raised.

To create an open space for pedestrians the orthotropic steel deck is relatively wide. As part of the design process the use of a counter weight was assessed against the additional space required to house the counter weight. Given the relatively infrequent operation it was apparent that the imbedded carbon of the counter weight and associated civils aspects would be greater than the additional power required per operation.