Accoya® Bridge Set To Span the Flow of Time

Completed earlier this year, the bridge spans Pielekenswater and its design was inspired by the work of Dutch military engineer Menno van Coehoorn, who built the 18th century Revelijn op den Zoom fortress in the same location.

Ro Koster and Ad Kil, of Bergen op Zoom-based RO&AD Architects, who also mastered the famous and award winning Moses Bridge in Halsteren, designed the 80m floating pedestrian bridge to allow access to the 18th century fort''s entrance. Its snake-like path mimics the journey and motion of the boats which originally travelled there.

The deck of the bridge, which is made entirely from Accoya, sits close to the water at Pielekenswater. Thanks to Accys Technologies'' proprietary acetylation process the wood is well equipped to deal with such a high-moisture environment. Accoya has class one durability, is guaranteed for 25 years and has dimensional stability that sees swelling and shrinkage reduced by 75% and more compared to other wood products.

Exceeding the high-quality and aesthetic attributes of tropical hardwoods, Accoya also boasts excellent environmental credentials; it is sourced from FSC® certified forests and certified at Gold level by the Cradle-to-Cradle Products Innovation Institute.

The bridge was built by Alldlex Watersports, from neighbouring Halsteren.

Ro Koster, of RO&AD Architects, said: “In building the bridge, we were inspired to take people back in time to when regular journeys were made from the city to Van Coehoorn''s fort to supply troops with equipment.

“Accoya was the automatic choice for this project. Its strength and durability combined with its construction flexibility made it the ideal wood to work with. Accoya''s environmental credentials are also appealing – we wanted to work with a timber which would not only deliver excellent strength and durability but was also sustainably sourced. Given Accoya''s modification process is C2C certified, the product fitted seamlessly with our principles of sustainability.”