Weaving history and culture into aesthetic designs is a theme across the Gordie Howe International Bridge project.
Examples are seen in Michael Belmore’s Indigenous artwork, Jordan Sook’s commemorative art piece and Sara Graham’s artistic façade at the Canadian Port of Entry as well as the jump form murals previously affixed to the bridge towers.
The Michigan Interchange, covering approximately three kilometres/1.8 miles of I-75 between Springwells Street and Clark Street, also has artistic components.
The new ramps connecting I-75 to the US Port of Entry (POE) pay tribute to Historic Fort Wayne’s unique star-shaped fort structure, a nod to the nearby landmark. The engravings were designed by an architect Nicolas Bogle and represent a creative collaborative solution between architects and engineers.
The Michigan Interchange ramps are constructed with steel girders at one end and concrete girders on the other, requiring flexible structural anchoring to account for the difference in the way that the two different materials behave. These large rectangular structures are known as load transfer gates, and the engravings are visible on these gates.
For the Gordie Howe International Bridge project, these structures are significantly larger than a standard pier or column. The load transfer gates include a large retaining wall enclosure filled with mechanically stabilized earth (MSE). MSE systems consist of precast and cast in place concrete elements along with the engineered fill that makes up the load transfer gates. The architect identified these structures as an opportunity to provide visual interest along West Fort Street to visually honour the area’s history, by designing concrete relief to be cast into the forms.
The precast elements were done with custom CNC cut rubber forms into which the concrete elements were cast in, while the cast-in-place portions were done in a more traditional manner – using skilled carpentry to cut wood pieces to form a negative of the desired pattern on the inside of the concrete form work. Care had to be taken that all the relief elements on the form are precisely angled so that they don’t become trapped within the hardening concrete.
A similar design inspired by Fort Wayne is also used on the Jefferson Barrier Wall as part of the US Port of Entry (POE), contributing to the project’s cohesive visual identity.
