Apr 18 2005
The shortlist is announced for the competition to design a new vehicular and pedestrian crossing of the River Wear at Sunderland. The bridge will be a major, circa £43 million pound structure and forms part of the wider Sunderland Strategic Transport Corridor (SSTC) initiative.
Expressions of Interest were received from thirty-five (35) architectural / engineering-led consortia from across the UK, Europe, Israel, Scandinavia and the United States. The Expressions of Interest were appraised by a Technical Panel consisting of representatives from Sunderland City Council, Sunderland arc, together with independent advisers from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE). The panel was impressed by the overall quality of the submissions and the team structures proposed. The six consortia (listed alphabetically) invited to develop design proposals for the new bridge are as follows:
Gifford & Partners Ltd / Wilkinson Eyre Architects
Halcrow Group Ltd / Dissing+Weitling Arkitektfirma a.s. / Flint & Neill Partnership
Hyder Consulting (UK) Ltd / Yee Associates
Marks Barfield Architects / Jacobs Babtie / Leonhardt Andrae und Partner
Schlaich Bergermann und Partner / Gehry Partners LLP / WS Atkins Consultants Ltd
Spence Associates / Techniker Ltd
- for each consortia the Lead Consultant is named first, together with the architects or engineers with whom they propose to work.
Sunderland City Council and Sunderland arc are looking forward to seeing how the teams respond to the design brief. This calls for a landmark structure that as well as putting Sunderland on the map, will act as a gateway to the city centre and lead to urban regeneration. Design proposals from the short-listed consortia will be submitted in late May 2005 and will be judged anonymously.