Design and Construction of the West Kowloon Cultural District Artist Square Arch Footbridge

The West Kowloon Cultural District Artist Square Bridge (ASB) is a part of Hong Kong’s new art and cultural district development. It forms a primary pedestrian link between the adjacent MTR station and the new development. ASB is a design-and-build project consisting of a 78m clear spanning, 8m wide footbridge, an access lift tower and a 30m long staircase and escalators. The footbridge is a covered, dual steel arch and Vierendeel truss footbridge, that crosses an existing flyover, connecting the station shopping mall to the new development. During construction of ASB, very limited space was available on the new development site to accommodate the construction of ASB. These posed engineering challenges to the design and construction team. This paper presents the design of the ASB structures with particular focus on the main footbridge, and the challenges encountered during the design and construction of ASB and how incremental launching solution was developed to tackle these challenges.