WSP Earns Awards at the 2019 Ottawa Urban Design Awards

WSP received two Awards of Excellence for Urban Elements and Public Places & Civic Spaces for the Flora Footbridge project on October 9 at the 2019 Ottawa Urban Design Awards.

Named after Canadian politician Flora MacDonald, the Flora Footbridge is a project in conjunction with DTAH to construct a 125-metre bridge over the Rideau Canal between Fifth Avenue and Clegg Street, connecting the neighbourhoods of Old Ottawa East, the Glebe and Old Ottawa South to help improve access and reduce travel distance.

Construction of this bridge was part of a strategy to create a more livable city, and the structure creates an important transportation link between two urban communities. The steel bridge design includes V-Piers and a widened deck at centre-span for users to view the vistas of the Rideau Canal UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Design aspects include:

• Concealed LED fixtures in the handrail, as well as below-deck accent lighting to illuminate the V-frames, providing pleasing reflections in the water at night.
• Seasonality function – the elliptical-shaped piers provide a place to sit during canal skating in the winter; in the summer kayaks, canoes and boats can travel under the crossing.
• A 5-metre wide GFRP reinforced concrete deck with a lookout bench.

The scope of WSP’s contributions included conceptual design, EA, preliminary and detail detailed design, and contract administration services during the construction phase of the project.

About the Ottawa Urban Design Awards

The Ottawa Urban Design Awards is a biennial awards program that celebrates projects in the City of Ottawa that achieve urban design excellence in six different categories including (1) Urban Infill, (2) Public Places and Civic Spaces, (3) Urban Elements, (4) Visions and Master Plans, (5) Community Initiatives and (6) Student Projects. In the eighth instalment of the program, the 2019 awards honoured exceptional projects in Ottawa completed between September 1, 2017, and September 1, 2019.

About WSP

As one of the world's leading professional services firms, WSP provides technical expertise and strategic advice to clients in the Transportation & Infrastructure, Property & Buildings, Environment, Industry, Resources (including Mining and Oil & Gas) and Energy sectors, as well as offering project and program delivery and advisory services. Our experts include engineers, advisors, technicians, scientists, architects, planners, surveyors and environmental specialists, as well as other design, program and construction management professionals. With approximately 49,000 talented people in 550 offices across 40 countries—more than 8,000 in Canada and 9,500 in the U.S.—we are uniquely positioned to deliver successful and sustainable projects, wherever our clients need us.