Bridge at Dights Falls
By Jack Trentepohl and Drew Muscat: "the bridgemaxxers"
University of Melbourne
Situated on the outskirts of Melbourne’s CBD, Dights Falls is an important site for the city’s short- and long-term history.
For local Indigenous cultures, it was a place for gathering, feeding, and connecting between groups.
More recently, it played a role in powering the factories of the surrounding area.
Today, however, the site remains underutilised by the local community, functioning primarily as a lookout and fish breeding area on the southwest side, and as a short walking trail on the north-east side. For many people travelling along the river, access to the northern trail and a closer experience of the falls remains limited. Our proposal seeks to connect these fragmented areas, improving accessibility and creating a more cohesive experience of the site.
The bridge’s structure was inspired by the extreme flooding which occurs in the region. For this reason optimisation was situated around simulating a flood event and producing a structure which could withstand the extreme pressure of these events.
Sitting above the structure, the walkway sweeps lightly from the existing plinth toward the lower entry point. With re-used timber sleepers sitting between a lightweight steel profile, the bridge merges both structural efficiency with user experience, responding sensibly to the sites history and current uses.
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