The team beat US architect Skidmore Owings & Merrill and London architect and bridge designer Yee Associates with engineer Mott MacDonald.
One link comprises a pair of identical opening bascule bridges spanning Belmouth Passage waterway to the east of Canary Wharf tower, replacing a temporary bridge. The 30 m bridges, supported by discs positioned on roller bearings, open upwards as the discs rotate hydraulically.
Lower-level walkways run through the discs, allowing pedestrian access along the quayside, even when the bridges are open.
Another 60 m bascule bridge will span West India Quay to the north-east of Canary Wharf tower, replacing the 15-year-old North Quay access bridge.
It will link the site of the proposed 41-storey Foster and Partners-designed HSBC Holdings headquarters building with North Quay. This bridge opens by using the deck as a counterbalance.
The client for the three bridges is Canary Wharf Contractors; Jan Brobowski & Partners is structural engineer, project manager and planning supervisor; Davis Langdon & Everest is QS and Forward Industries is hydraulic consultant.
Chris Wilkinson Architects has also been shortlisted in a competition to design an £8m, 250 m footbridge with a 200 m span across the Seine in Paris.
The bridge will link the Bibliothèque Nationale with the Parque de Bercy. A lower deck will link the banks 6-8 m below the main bridge.
The other firms in the running are French architects Dominic Perrault, Antoine Grumbach, Marc Mimram and Patrick Berger, and Paris-based US firm Reichen Robert, German architect Dietmar Feichtinger and Japanese architect B2 Bokura-Barbot. A winner will be chosen before the end of February Chris Wilkinson Architects, working with lead consultant Ove Arup International, is also shortlisted to design a 1.5 km bridge in Greece on a new east-west transcontinental highway. A winner will be chosen by the end of January.
- Architect Zaha Hadid is tipped to win her first UK design commission at the end of this month – a 30 m enclosed footbridge spanning the Holloway Road, linking the University of North London's main campus with adjacent teaching blocks. Hadid is expected to be chosen for the £1.2m scheme ahead of Alsop and Störmer, Ahrends Burton & Koralek and Chris Wilkinson Architects with structural engineer Whitby Bird & Partners at the end of January.
