This years footbridge conference in Madrid is the continuation of a long set of Conferences that started in Paris in 2002, followed by cities as Porto, Venice, Wroclaw, London and Berlin. The present edition tries to follow the aim of the Berlin’s 2017 conference. In that case the moto of the congress was ‘tell us a story’; now we want to know more about the feeling and experience of users, owners, designers and constructors.
In the small village of Besigheim, north of Stuttgart, a new footbridge over the river Enz was built just in front of the historic, listed cityscape. With a curved span of approximately 70m and inclined hanger cables just connected to the outer edge of the superstructure, the one-sided suspension bridge offers pedestrians a direct connection from the new-built park and garage to the medieval city-center, and cyclists to smoothly transfer from one river bank to the other. The new footbridge, despite being a highly technical lightweight structure, respectfully considers the local context and carefully embraces the adjacent listed water mill. It hence contributes in form and function to the creation of the new park and playground at the riverbank, and it allows visitors for a new experience of the river and the historic cityscape.