The Corporation Street Footbridge (completed November 1999) (represents, we believe, the world’s first bridge whose delicate structure prescribes a hyperbolic parabaloid of revolution.

The enclosing glass technology is also quite revolutionary, utilising a polyethylene terethalate (PET) interlayer clamped into elliptical castings designed for the project. At another level, the footbridge represents a particular contextual response to a unique civic context and has quickly become a potent iconic symbol for the regeneration of Manchester’s city centre after the bomb.

The footbridge appears as a lightweight glazed membrane stretched across, and presenting a minimal intervention with the street. Its transparency is heightened by the arch which permits uninterrupted aspects and whose symmetry optically redresses the change in level of the boardwalk which treads through between the extended Arndale Centre and the new Marks & Spencer.

The bridge is a beam spanning 19m; 18 rods are pre-stressed against 18 compression members via compression rings at each end; the bridge is ‘self contained’ in terms of pre stressing loads and does not rely on adjacent buildings for anchorage.