The Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion that located in Zaragoza, Spain. The building was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. He has chosen glass fiber concrete from Austrian company Rieder to cover the 275 meters long Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion, symbol of the Expo 2008 in the northern spanish Zaragoza: she will envelope the outer skin of the building with 29,000 triangles in diverse grey nuances out of fiber C (a new innovative sustainable material). The new bridge over the river Ebro is entrance to the Expo area and at the same time multi-level exhibition area; 10,000 visitors per hour will frequent the main building of the world exhibition.
The shape of the Bridge Pavilion is a result of a detailed examination and research into the potential of the diamond-shape which offers both structural and programming properties. It was noted that a diamond section can efficiently distribute forces along a surface, whilst underneath a floor plate within the shape, the resulting triangular pocket space can be used to run services. The diamond section used in the Bridge Pavilion has been extruded along a slightly curved path generating the four separate ‘pods’ of the Bridge Pavilion. The stacking and interlocking of these truss elements (the ‘pods’) satisfies two specific criteria: optimizing the structural system, and allowing for a natural differentiation of the interiors - where each ‘pod’ corresponds to a specific exhibition space. By intersecting the trusses/pods, they brace each other and loads are distributed across the four trusses instead of a singular main element, resulting in a reduction in size of load-bearing members.
The design capitalizes on the ambiguous nature of the original brief, maintaining both the aspect of a traditional bridge (open to the environment with the steel structure being the dominant visual element) and that of a more conventional exhibition pavilion where climate and light permeability are controlled.
