Nongxia bridge is designed as a bold and contemporary form but one that is familiar and unobtrusive. It delicately touches the surroundings and endeavours to integrate with a transparency that invites landscapes, views, weather and light to permeate through.
The design is an abstraction of the Chinese 廊桥 (láng qiáo) and the shutters that have typified the vernacular here for millennia. They were designed to mediate with the outside world and did so by offering a way to create space without confining it. The shutters of Nongxia bridge are operable, not primarily to offer protection but rather to offer an act -be that opening or closing- through which users may delight in creating their own space in which to linger and also play a role in that process of mediation; the dialogue between bridge, landscape and water.
Like the colour of fortune -red- Nongxia bridge wants to instil feelings of excitement and hope. It is a place maker, one that is inviting and open, memorable and spectacular. It does not however desire to consume the surroundings with its presence, it wants to live modestly by offering a simple place for lovers to linger and families to gather. Ultimately Nongxia bridge hopes -in its own small way- to be a part of what makes Wuhan a pleasant and delightful city to live in.