Fairleigh Dickinson University

Highlights

• Site – 200 lf plus work at the abutments
• The bridge is the only pedestrian link between two halves of the campus.
• The bridge is home to a variety of outdoor rooms.
• Neighbors and friends from the surrounding community have incorporated it into their daily lives.

Perspectives

This project began as a bridge restoration. After initial discussions, the facilities department and designers quickly recognized the potential for the bridge to reflect, via a holistic replacement strategy, the university’s commitment to ecological health and social wellness. The densely planted garden path replaces a crumbling concrete-and-chain-link walkway to connect FDU’s split campuses. The bridge is designed to reflect and restore the native ecosystem. It affirms the university’s commitment to stewardship of the river and embodies the ongoing transformation of the campus into a sustainable eco-park for increasing landscape resiliency and human well-being. It has become the heart of the campus—a learning landscape delivering a place for formal education, university events, and the chance encounters so important to academic life.

Project Team

Viridian Landscape Studio; BEAM Ltd.; Maser Consulting; ICI Consultants, Inc.; Roofmeadow; Bruce Brooks Associates; Big R Bridge