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The Braided Strands - New Render

3Dementia

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Design of Distinction - The Braided Strands (new render)

ORE-new.jpg
 
The Braided Strands-a revised rendering...Nice!

3D: Good revised rendering-now let's get this to become reality! LI MIKE
 
Well this contest was lame and has accomplished what?

It got people talking and strong a very strong message to those in charge that people are NOT apathetic to good design in the city. In this city, many bureaucrats and politicians don't work towards ideals and innovation in terms of urban design or transit, the citizenry must ask strongly. But I also like to think that the people who organized this can learn from their experiences as to be more effective in the future.
 
Preliminary Construction Cost Estimate - The Braided Strands

A while ago, we kindly asked one of southern ontario's largest general contractors to take a look at our design and use their experience in similar projects to estimate the construction cost of "The Braided Strands".

Today, we received their cost estimate and their summary follows:

THE BRAIDED STRANDS – PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE, TORONTO
PRELIMINARY CONSTRUCTION BUDGET

At the preparation of preliminary budget for construction costs of the pedestrian bridge, very limited information has been available (architectural layout, schematic profile and a few architectural rendering presenting the designers’ ideas from various perspectives).

In the lack of structural design, detailed geometry, dimensions of elements and data of materials and products intended to use, we had to make numerous assumptions for producing a rough cost estimate.

Most important are the structural approach and assumptions outlined below.


Structural assumptions:

The concrete-surfaced passage, the wood deck passage and the asphalt-surfaced passage represent three bridge decks. The passages shall bridge the 102.2m distance between the Front Street and City Place landings, approximately 12 meters above the Union Station Railway Corridor,

A central pier - located between the tracks of the railway corridor - divides the distance to two smaller spans (approx. 58m and 43m) and the indicated pier and cable stayed bridge system can provide support to the middle section of the bridge (approx. 46m) only.

On the north side, 33m long and on the south 23m long deck pieces branch off the main concrete deck forming irregular fork shapes. These “free†spans - not suspended by cables – shall be the most critical items at the detailed design. The structural design shall determine the material, shape and depth of the various bridge deck structures. Each shall be capable to take the dead and live loads within the deflection criteria.

The most frequently used structural systems for pedestrian bridge decks:

- Concrete deck on girders (tee, double tee or box shapes), reinforced (and post- or pre-stressed for longer spans); it can be cast-in-place or precast concrete
- Steel deck and steel girders and trusses
- Composite concrete (deck) and steel structure
- FRP structure (high strength – light weight)
- Composite FRP structure

In the budget, we assumed concrete and steel structure combinations, without having any preliminary structural design available.

THE BRAIDED STRANDS – PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE, TORONTO
PRELIMINARY CONSTRUCTION BUDGET

FOR TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST AND COST BREAKDOWN

STRUCTURAL & CIVIL WORKS CAN $

CENTRAL PIER & CABLE STAYED SYSTEM 698,500.-

FRONT STREET & CITY PLACE LANDINGS 574,500.-

SITE WORKS 86,000.-

BRIDGE DECKS 1,267,000.-

ARCHITECTURAL & MISCELLANEOUS WORKS

ARCHITECTURAL WORKS 882,000.-

CASH ALLOWANCES 325,000.-

ELECTRICAL WORKS (lighting, lightning protection etc) 200,000
WATER & DRAINAGE (related utilities & connections) 80,000
LANDSCAPING 25,000
STREETSCAPE (benches, trashcans, bike racks etc) 20,000

COST FACTOR - WORKING IN RAILWAY CORRIDOR 10% 383,000.-
_____________
DIRECT COSTS 4,216.000.-

MOBILIZATION, SUPERVISION, GENERAL COSTS 15% 632,000.-

BOND & INSURANCE COSTS 2% 97,000.-

CONTRACTOR’S OVERHEAD & PROFIT 10% 500,000.-
____________
TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST 5,445,000.-

The accuracy of the preliminary budget has been limited by the information available. It covers the construction costs only, does not include GST, design costs, inspection and verification costs, building permit costs, development fees, levies, utility connections and fees, or any other kind of soft costs.


SpadinaBus
Team O.R.E. (Office for Responsive Environments)
 
$5.5M? Not bad. Just above half of what the competition allowed but well above what Concord Adex is willing to spend.

Shouldn't we have seen a design by now? Vaughan promised we'd see a "non-truss bridge" design "soon". This was the better part of a year ago.

I'm sure the organizers of this charette learned some lessons -- as did I as a contributor. If this had taken place with the support of a major publication (TheStar for example), the winner could have had a chance of gaining public support and making it into consideration in city council.
 
The problem was that this was a business decision which had been made long before we embarked on our charette. We had a number of councilors voice support for what we were doing but in the end, Concord (and to some degree, Vaughan) had made their decision behind closed doors and were sticking by it. We have constantly been teased with the promise of renders, something about which we seem to slobber like Pavlovian dogs, but time has passed and still none have surfaced. It's unfortunate really, but because this is a private rather than public affair Concord is holding all the cards, and holding them a little too close to the chest I might add.
 
Well this contest was lame and has accomplished what?

I'm a huge fan of this exercise and encourage more of the same! I love seeing people with skills I don't possess (CAD, architectural design, etc.) creating these great concepts. Keep it up.
 
$5.5M? Not bad. Just above half of what the competition allowed but well above what Concord Adex is willing to spend.

I agree. The beautiful design didn't look cheap, but no one is willing to spend that amount for bridge. Until the Front St. side completely changes too, there's very little reason to spend that kind of money on a span hardly seen or used by anyone with no connection to Cityplace.

How many units on that side of Cityplace? 3000? 5000? If 5000 people were living there, that's, in a very rough way, like spending $1000 per person.
 

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