Tabiat Pedestrian Bridge is located in the northern part of the city of Tehran in a zone called Abbas Abad Lands; this is a 559Ha area which is mainly dedicated to cultural spaces such as libraries and museums, as well as public parks. Tabiat Bridge was designed in order to address the need to improve access for pedestrians between the two parks, which are divided by a major highway. ‘Tabiat’ means ‘Nature’ in Persian language.
The bridge crosses Modarres Highway, one of the main highways of the city, and connects Abo Atash Park on the west to Taleghani Park on the east. The intention was to design a pedestrian route that was completely separate from the highway. The 270 meters long bridge is the largest pedestrian bridge built so far in Iran. Design of this bridge was the result of a two-phase competition which started in May 2008. The winning design was selected in August of the following year, with detailed structural and architectural design beginning in September 2009 and construction work began in September 2010. It was inaugurated in October 2014.
Tabiat bridge, the largest of its kind in Iran , was architect Leila Araghian’s first project. She designed it five years ago while a student, winning a local competition for a plan to connect two parks separated by a highway in north Tehran.
In the original master plan the idea was to connect one point in one park to one point in the other park, but here the architect’s idea was to create multiple paths on each park that would lead people on to the bridge. On the east side, there are multiple paths branching from both levels of the bridge and connecting to other paths within Taleghani Park.
This bridge is a space intended to be a place to linger rather than just one to pass through, and to act as an extension of the parks, so seating areas and green spaces on all parts of the bridge has been considered, as well as a coffee shop and restaurant on the two sides of the lower level, to have enough means to keep the users slow down and stay on the bridge.
Creating a curved path for the bridge was also intended to contribute to this aim; on the straight alignment that is typical of most bridges in the order to achieve structural efficiency, produces a single point perspective, which encourages users to keep going and the destination is quite clear. In this case, the idea was to make a curved path with variable width and changes in slopes, to slow down the users and create a sense of mystery about the destination.
Since the site was covered by trees, especially on the east side, the number of columns and their location was designed in a way to have the minimum footprint on the ground in order to avoid having to remove trees.
The bridge should be absolutely visited in the evening when its dark because of its colorful illumination.
Its a very interesting place where the young/modern Tehran shows up and enjoys a walk over the two floors of the bridge. The bridge leads to a pedestrian zone with a couple of restaurants. There are food courts and many different coffee shops inside the bridge. The bridge has become sort of a romantic spot for young lovers of Tehran, you see people strolling hand in hand, taking pictures of each other and talking quietly. Drink some tea of coffee at the cafes there and just looking at this big city of Tehran.
