Bridge Design, Perception, and Emotion

Abstract

Bridges are a paradigmatic case of human transformation of nature, and their design should always aspire to improve the quality of the built world. Even in the early stages of their history, bridges transcended their mere functional role to become objects with aesthetic ambitions. Nowadays, however, the disappearance of technical calculation limitations has made possible, in the opinion of the author, to deliver the information needed to build a bridge with almost no emotional engagement in the process. Also, education at universities rarely aims for a well-rounded set of skills that allows to simultaneously master the technical challenges of bridge design, while understanding how the users and perceivers will experience them. The objective of this article is to contribute to fill this gap by trying to understand how human beings perceive and feel the world around them, what makes parts of this world attractive for them, and how this can be consciously used as a key part of the bridge design process to conceive long-lasting valuable pieces of the built environment.

Keywords:

• bridge design
• aesthetics
• perception
• emotion
• appearance durability

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank to all the people who made it possible for their images to be used to illustrate this article.