You wouldn’t expect cardboard to be strong enough to build a bridge, but that’s exactly what ingenious architect Shigeru Ban decided to use to build a bridge across the Gardon River in his latest work of architectural innovation. You might be familiar with his previous work (his Curtain Wall House, Nomadic Museum, and Paper Church in particular), but the bridge, his latest work, proves that Shigeru Ban is truly a brilliant architectural mind in the world of green and context-sensitive design.
The bridge, located over the Gardon River in southern France, is made almost entirely out of cardboard tubes (281 to be exact), and is strong enough to carry 20 people at a time. The steps of the bridge are constructed from recycled paper and plastic. And how does it stand up, you may ask yourself? It turns out cardboard is surprisingly strong when engineered as precisely and creatively as Ban has designed it, but the foundations do get a little help from wooden boxes packed with sand.
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