Los Gatos Pedestrian Bridge
The Los Gatos Pedestrian Bridge is the conduit that would connect the vibrant downtown and athletic activities to Northeast residential districts in Los Gatos.
The bridge would facilitate safe passage for pedestrians and cyclists by reducing collisions at vehicle intersections as well as providing a short-cut for people to easily access Los Gatos Creek Trail. The new addition would also promote biking because of its accessibility for both the citizens of the Northeast side of town and those in the new North 40 community land use project. Lastly, the bridge also adopts traditional Los Gatos features like natural wooden materials and accessible pedestrian landings, capturing the essence of the town and incorporating traits that could define it as a Los Gatos landmark.
Designing
This project originally started in the summer of 2020. After the pandemic started, I started to think about what I would want to do in college and in my later career path. Fresh after landing on the idea of Urban Design, I spent the start of my summer working on perspective drawings (you can find them under the Fine Arts page). After feeling more comfortable drawing architecture, I moved on to my big project! I read a lot about the Los Gatos North 40 project and even considered redesigning my own version of the area. After biking with my family more often, we found that a highway overpass just next to the North 40 area, the Lark Overpass, was quite unsafe. Most of the time, when my family decided to bike to Los Gatos Creek Trail, we would detour around two other highway overpasses to reach the trail. Biking on the Lark Overpass was simply not a safe option. Connecting those two ideas, I decided that Los Gatos needed a bike and pedestrian overcrossing to not only provide a safer route to Los Gatos Creek Trail but also garner interest and business for the North 40 community. Thus, in the summer, I started designing what the bridge could look like.
3D Model Process
During my 2 week Christmas break, I spent approximately 50 hours creating this 3D model. My art teacher and I compiled all of the cardboard and other interesting materials I could use into a giant cardboard box. All of the materials were recycled from packaging or found lying around the house. Just for the tube that would create the main part of the bridge, we had four or five options to choose from. The tube we ended up using was perfect! Short enough to fit on the beautiful board my art teacher found and stiff enough to hold the structure, yet not too stiff for cutting. At first, I had to ask my art teacher for a lot of help on how to structure everything. My art teacher simply told me to put two layers of cardboard in the tube to make a strong support system and that's what I did. Gradually, I became more familiar with the materials and how to make the vision come to life. Every day, I took progress pictures to capture the process and how a simple cardboard tube turned into a beautiful 3D concept model. Enjoy!
