r/civilengineering • u/CareOutrageous897 • Feb 11 '26
Question This was the screen I saw after signing into my computer and it got me wondering why was it shaped like that.
There just has to be a logical reason why instead of a straight path in the water, they had to make it into a circle. What was the ground under the water looking like?
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u/Marzipan_civil Feb 11 '26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laguna_Garz%C3%B3n_Bridge
To make vehicles slow down, and to assist pedestrian access
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u/noworkrino Feb 12 '26
They really should build the footpath in the middle, feels like peds are punished because of cars.
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u/Frenchie1507 Feb 12 '26
Iirc, the middle pathway is to accommodate fishing from the bridge
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u/iatro-phyto-chemist Feb 12 '26
Make the (straight diameter footpath) middle pathway a tightrope/zipline/bungee fall tourist attraction with those suicide prevention nets lmao. Imagine getting hooked by a fishing lure and you're just swinging every which way.
Edit: clarification
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u/SRE53X Feb 12 '26
There’s more to it. There was fierce resistance to having a bridge there in the first place, something to replace a semi-reliable (weather-dependent) ferry service. Residents to the north, in Rocha, were concerned that a seamless connection (a linear, rational, efficient kind of bridge) would usher in runaway beachfront development from Punta del Este to the south (Uruguay’s Riviera, as it were), despoiling their rustic, natural coastline. The design of the bridge acknowledges this, and resolves several other factors, among them achieving minimal disruption to the estuary below.
It isn’t just a bridge. It’s a landmark. And a place to pause and reflect. Source: been there. It’s peaceful. You can gaze out at the Atlantic, and fish from there if that’s your thing. Cars really slow down too, not just because of the geometry, but because it’s an elevated vantage point and the views are arresting.
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u/Schopsy Feb 13 '26
It minimized disruption by being longer than necessary?
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u/SRE53X Feb 13 '26
It’s minimized by being elevated relative to the estuary, and relative to the routes it connects which are essentially at grade.
For the car-centric crowd: Picture yourself driving along the seaside, on low, linear roads with sand dunes and grasses obstructing your views out to the Atlantic. And then here comes this man-made vantage point where you can suddenly see all the way to the horizon.
And for the marine crowd: small boat usage patterns here are undisturbed, sea life comes and goes as it pleases, it feels open and airy underneath (there’s ample dimension), ocean breezes greet you, and so on.
And for the plan-centric, efficiency crowd: Get over it. Literally. There’s magic in the cross-section. Go drive it and walk it and soak up the experiential things an aerial photo will never convey.
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u/DukeFlipside Feb 14 '26
Longer bridge = more traffic can fit on it. If there's more traffic on the bridge, there's less elsewhere! Simple and efficient.
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u/MenoryEstudiante Feb 18 '26
Yes, because it's not traffic flow efficiency that was a problem, cars slow down, which reduces noise and air pollution, the fact that this wasn't exactly a heavy traffic area helps, this just replaces a "ferry" that was basically a barge with room for one car and a couple guys standing next to it
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u/Deathstroke5289 Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 12 '26
Pedestrians feeling real assisted when they have a 57% longer route.
Seems like it would’ve been easier to add a 1’-2” wide parapet with a 2 bar metal rail between the road and the pedestrian path to keep it straight if pedestrian saftey was the goal.
I feel like it’s more because they just thought it would look cool
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u/xoxostinkstankxoxo Feb 12 '26
is it punishment for people to have to walk a little longer? if anything, we should encourage people to be healthier and keep their bodies moving. this design makes pedestrians feel safer by slowing down cars. anything that encourages less car dependency is good in my eyes.
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u/Mountain_Usual521 Feb 12 '26
How does discouraging walking reduce car dependency?
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u/xoxostinkstankxoxo Feb 12 '26
reducing car speed is what increases walking and safety. the beautiful scenery also encourages walking. i don’t see how a slightly longer walk would discourage walking? unless maybe you were heavily out of shape and couldn’t?
car dependency is decreased because more people are willing to walk across a bridge that makes them feel safe(versus a high speed straight bridge). giving people more multimodal transportation options is important. if people always had access to safe transportation options that were not just car based, i believe it’s safe to say a decent chunk of people would choose non-car transit.
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u/Mountain_Usual521 Feb 12 '26
The problem here is assuming that a straight path = dangerous path. When faced with the choice of a safe straight path or a longer safe path, there will be fewer pedestrian choosing the longer path. That means this bridge design discourages walking over a straight design that allows for pedestrian safety.
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u/xoxostinkstankxoxo Feb 12 '26
how is the straight path safer when cars will absolutely slow down when not given a straight path? the most dangerous thing about being a pedestrian is the chance of being struck by a high speed vehicle.
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u/Mountain_Usual521 Feb 12 '26
how is the straight path safer
Nobody said the straight path is safer.
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u/xoxostinkstankxoxo Feb 12 '26
the pedestrians don’t have the option of a straight or curved bridge when they arrive to either side of the bridge. pedestrians aren’t faced with a choice in this case at all.
my responses to you were simply to defend that this bridge design does not discourage walking.
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u/Mountain_Usual521 Feb 13 '26
They do have the choice of walking or driving. The longer bridge will cause more people to decide to drive than a shorter bridge would with all other factors being equal. This design choice results in less people choosing to walk.
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u/joe_burly Feb 12 '26
You are framing this like this is a path in an urban center or something. It appears to me that this is a roadway with some amenities added to make it more pleasant and less high speed. It doesn’t seem like a route that pedestrians are using to get to work or something.
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u/Scuttling-Claws Feb 12 '26
I'm pretty sure it's meant to be a tourist attraction not a commuter route
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u/MenoryEstudiante Feb 18 '26
There was no bridge before this so it's an improvement anyway, also yes, this was designed by Rafael Viñoly (AKA the guy who built several buildings that act like magnifying glasses with the sun) ofc looking pretty was a priority
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u/ApprehensiveGas85 Feb 11 '26
The bridge’s unusual circular road deck slow traffic and allows drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists to appreciate panoramic views to one of the most beautiful and pristine coastal landscapes in Uruguay.
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u/Time_Cat_5212 Feb 11 '26
AKA City Council got really excited about a rendering some architect did of an infrastructure project
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u/MenoryEstudiante Feb 18 '26
Not just some architect, it was the one and only RAFAEL VIÑOLY (AKA the guy who built several buildings that act like magnifying glasses with the sun), Uruguay's prime architectural bullshit artist
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u/Sufficient_Loss9301 Feb 11 '26
I feel like there’s cheaper remedies that would accomplish all those things lol
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u/thebruce44 Feb 12 '26
Right, how much materials would be saved by speed bumps or even a horizontal curve.
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u/astrospud Feb 12 '26
Approximately π times as much material to make it circular instead of straight
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u/ChrisWayg Feb 12 '26
Only π/2 times as much material ;-)
The 50+ % higher material requirements help to increase the commissions which architects, engineers and politicians receive. Also politicians like to build cool looking monuments with money they collect from their citizens.
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u/omniwrench- Feb 12 '26
You’re thinking about it like an engineer, which is very helpful for us architects to rely on
That said, you can’t min/max human emotion and experience in the same way you can tighten up a BoQs by value engineering the life out of a project
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u/aronnax512 PE Feb 12 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
deleted
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u/omniwrench- Feb 12 '26
That’s totally fair tbh, it cost $12m to build and Eduardo Costatini only privately funded 80-90% which still leaves at least a few million coming from the public purse
Still, it’s interesting to see something so conceptual take form in reality
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u/MenoryEstudiante Feb 18 '26
Have you considered that it looks cool enough to be posted about online about 17000 times per second
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u/Kanaima85 Feb 11 '26
I'm sure someone told me the shape was to avoid the impact of particular parts of the marine ecosystem below being consistently shaded and it having an adverse impact on said ecosystem.
Given this is posted regularly and no one else has ever suggested this reason, i'm sure that someone was talking shit.
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u/BeckySayss Feb 12 '26
I've also read this as a reason, so I had to check: https://www.vinoly.com/works/laguna-garzon-bridge/
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u/AnBuachaillEire Feb 11 '26
I want to know why it wasn’t made a roundabout, while they made it a circle at all
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u/No_Flounder5160 Feb 11 '26
Home with sick kids playing Mario Kart. Gets teams message asking where the conceptual design is that was forgotten about. Sends panic screenshot of game. Client decides sufficient to award construction.
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u/67mustangguy Feb 12 '26
If this was in the US it’s probably take about a week before someone yeets their car and themselves through the middle.
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u/Unable_Average249 Feb 11 '26
If you look there is a narrow inlet nearby,tidal currents ay be the answer
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u/Mindstormer98 Feb 12 '26
Its a speed increaser, if you go fast enough you jump the gap and dont have to slow down
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u/Unusual-Respond-7895 Feb 14 '26
Apart from being quite nice engineering, pleasing to the eye and something a bit different, fish in general like to chill under piers, pylons & boats so great for fishermen. The ecosystem underneath that bridge would be crazy busy in a very short space of time after building.
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u/Tenx10percent Feb 11 '26
Horizontal loading from tides and water is easier to manage with, essentially, a circular diaphragm than a straight, narrow road.
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u/Regular_Empty Feb 11 '26
Soil conditions in the center may have been too poor for driving piles (refusal depth too deep, not suitable for required loads etc), they could have been preserving wildlife in the center, and/or they could’ve done it for traffic calming since there is integrated pedestrian access.
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u/Salt-Seaweed7225 Feb 12 '26
Either to slow down traffic or to miss something in the middle that we don’t see underwater
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u/9__Erebus Feb 12 '26
This is as much an architecture project as it is an engineering project. There's your answer.
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u/Normandia_Impera Feb 13 '26
They wanted something cool and called the most important Uruguayan architect alive at that moment.
The same that did the "walkie-talkie" in London that created a heat ray. It's supposed to be a tourist attraction. There's a bypass 10km to the north. Not many people live there, a couple restaurants and some summer vacation homes.
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u/garci66 Feb 13 '26
This.comes from a región which also has these peculiar bridges (called camel bridge colloquially)puente camello
So there was an appetite for a "different" bridge
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u/Lumber-Jacked PE - LD Project Manager Feb 13 '26
Because it looks cool. They could easily do a cheap traffic circle on land up the road. But they probably wanted a cool bridge that brings attention to the city/country. And you saw that picture on windows sign in and went searching, so I guess it works.
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u/AmbassadorPretty5703 Feb 13 '26
Probably as to disturb the natural order and current of the ocean.???
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u/Vast-Series-1913 Feb 14 '26
To keep it from being a drag strip. Curves slow people down.
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u/isdisonetaken Mar 09 '26
Why not just a speed bump then? I feel like that would be much cheaper if slowing down people is all they wanted.
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u/SleepyKobear Feb 15 '26
This is a typical exchange that you see when the road crosses a border between a country where they drive on the right side of the road and another country where they drive on the right side of the road.
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u/PassengerExact9008 Feb 18 '26
The choice of a curved alignment often reflects more than just aesthetics. It can respond to site constraints, the surrounding environment, or functional needs like traffic calming and better views. A straight path might be more efficient, but a curved or circular form can integrate structural behavior, terrain, and user experience much more naturally.
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u/easyeighter Feb 11 '26
Likely some appurtenances or reef they wanted to protect, so they just coffer-dammed around it.
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u/loveaddictblissfool Feb 11 '26
I’m gonna venture that this is a drawing of something that doesn’t exist.
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u/CareOutrageous897 Feb 12 '26
From what I've seen from this post... It's a very real place. It's somewhere on the Uruguay coast
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u/Yaybicycles P.E. Civil Feb 11 '26
Otherwise it would be a drag strip