Geometrically Challenged

This is the upper station of Portland's Aerial Tram from the South Waterfront up a steep hill over a freeway and several major roads to the main OHSU (Oregon Health Science University) campus.

 

The unusual design was driven by several factors, the main one being that it had to be tall enough for passengers to walk directly into the street level floor of the adjacent Peter Kohler pavilion (which, because of the slope of the hill is actually several floors up on the station side of the building). The other major challenge was the station could not be permanently anchored or directly connected to that building! Because of critical care issues there had to be no chance that even a collapse of the station could shake or damage the building in any way.

 

The solution was to use a super computer to design these unusual slanting columns and piers and connect to the hospital via a "floating" sky bridge that actually just rests via gravity in a ledge on both the station and building edges. The station is completely self-supporting via those columns and is not supported or braced any other way. The bridge runs behind the red panels in this shot.

 

There is a great shot showing how free-standing this structure is here.

Done