Architects: Erfan Farahmand, Elmira Jafari, Seyed Meisam Amirsadat
Location: Tabriz, East Azerbaijan province, Iran
Client: Tabriz Municipality
Status: competition, First Prize Winner
Year: 2018

Selected as "the tourism capital of Islamic countries in 2018" by OIC (organization of Islamic cooperation), Tabriz is the most populated city in Iranian Azerbaijan, one of the historical capitals of Iran and the present capital of East Azerbaijan province. El-Gölü Garden, located at the south-eastern limit of the city, is one the most recognized instances of Persian Garden paradigm and currently together with the surrounding facilities serves as a tourist and recreational hub in Tabriz. Based on the recent planning visions of the city, El-Baghi as a large scale forest park connects the greenery of El-Gölü garden to the newly proposed green belt of the city. Yet, the southern side of the city ring road disconnects the pedestrian flow between El-Gölü Garden and El-Baghi park.
"El-Gölü Garden Bridge" is envisioned as a pedestrian connector to strengthen the recreational infrastructure of the south Tabriz. As a tourist attraction destination it is programmed to offer collective public spaces, restaurants and galleries encouraging population to pass over the bridge and vitalize El-Baghi park which lacks an intimate connection with the city fabric.
The first prize winning proposal in "El-Gölü Garden Bridge International Competition" goes beyond the connecting role of the bridge to create a recreational circulation at the place and product a collective space. Initially, the existing pedestrian bridge over the freeway is replaced by one bridge, and the second bridge connects the climaxes of hills; the two bridges are blended to create a continuous loop. The concept highlights the geographical location of the project on top of the city hills to provide an observatory point towards the city skyline while creating an urban landmark point. The internal and external sequential perspectives of the space consist one of the main essences of the concept.
The spatial structure of the bridge is basically shaped considering minimum intervention in the natural topography and taking advantage of the existing paths and altitudes to fluently connect the topographies at the sides. The bridge loop gently merges into the topography and shapes the access paths and terraced spaces on the hills. Collective spaces and sitting spots offering strategic views along the bridge, are protected against the eastern dominant wind by the rolled concrete structure of the bridge.
The structure of the project is decided based on the site possibilities, economic aspects, ease of construction and aesthetic. Studying different structural systems, post-tensioned reinforced modular structure is proposed for the project. The structure is designed at the same line with the design concept to avoid heavy industrialized-looking and to softly place it in the context.