An exercise in creativity: Students, firms discuss concepts for bridge redesign

Local architecture students recently reimagined Columbus’s “front door.”

Students from Indiana University’s J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program worked alongside professionals at an architectural “charrette” in late February to brainstorm possible concepts for the future of the red, double-arched bridge at the I-65 interchange with State Road 46 on the city’s

Faculty member Britt Brewer said the event well. “That doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a lot of work to do to make sense of all of the stuff that happens,” he said, “because a creative event like that can be messy, as you can imagine.”

The arched bridge could see changes sometime in the future due to highway work by the Indiana Department of Transportation.

INDOT hopes to widen I-65 from four to six lanes from Indianapolis to Louisville, including a stretch across the four-lane signature bridge at Exit 68 in Columbus.

In looking at the future of the bridge, Mayor Jim Lienhoop and City Engineer/Executive Director of Public Works Dave Hayward reached out to the architecture program, which offered to host the charrette session to brainstorm possible design solutions.

During the charrette, individuals from four design firms — Browning Day, BSA Life Structures, Griffy Creek Studio LLC and haptiKB — collaborated with students in teams to form concepts for the future of the arch bridge. The different teams had a few hours to design and develop their ideas before each giving a presentation at the session’s end.

Brewer said that possible concepts ranged from keeping the bridge to making something new. Some came “halfway,” with the arched bridge becoming part of a “larger composition” that would merge old and new pieces to meet new needs.

“One of the solutions drew a conclusion that said, ‘OK, what if the existing arch cannot stay there, and so it’s going to be taken away and whatever goes there will be some new thing — what happens to the existing arch? And how might we take advantage of that thing for which people have great affection and which has actually enough standing in its own right to be on the National Historic Landmarks roster?’ ” he said.

The team then went on to suggest possible uses.

In considering the future of the bridge, teams also considered the difficulties posed by the existing structure. Brewer said these included its origin, the “affection” people have for it, how effective the current bridge is, and how to connect it to any future changes.

The participants came up with many ideas for the future and didn’t shy away from ones that might be more difficult to fully realize, he added.

“These processes are years-long, and they’re ever-evolving,” said Brewer. “And community needs and community opinions about what should be happening are everchanging. To find that a solution for the one problem of going from four lanes to six lanes could actually be the seeds of making a contribution across the broader landscape — even more so than what you originally thought — is a nice thing to find out. And so those pieces were there.”

He said in February that the goal of the charrette was to produce something that the city could take to its partners on the project, mainly as a way to foster discussion.

Following the event, Brewer said that there’s still work left to do on helping city officials creating a suitable message.

“While each individual presentation at the very end might have some compelling component … that is different than what can be crafted into material that the mayor and the city engineer can use in their conversations with the Indiana Department of Transportation and the Federal Department of Transportation,” said Brewer. “So we know we have some work to do to craft that new message. … That’s where we are now. It’s where do we take everything we got, and what to we do with it?”

Hayward has said that while there is currently work going on south of the interchange, work on the bridge is not yet funded or scheduled, so any project addressing the issue would be several years off or longer.

He described the work being done at the charrette as a “classroom exercise, looking at what if this section of highway is widened and what happens to the existing arch structure at the interchange.”

Brewer said that, apart from brainstorming the future of the bridge, the charrette was also a milestone for the architecture program.

“The mayor did say something, which I think is a nice piece … which is that just the act of the charrette itself was the type of event that the city hoped for when the city first made an investment in bringing the architecture program to Columbus,” he said. “So as the very first charrette that the program has ever held to benefit an issue that the city cares about — for that reason, it was a momentous event all along, all by itself. And I thought that was every nice to hear, because to hear that the school is acting in a way that fulfills the community’s initial wishes when they invested in bringing the initial program here is gratifying.”