Award at the Ulrich Finsterwalder Civil Engineering Prize 2019

On 12 February 2019, the Kienlesberg Bridge was awarded the prestigious Ulrich Finsterwalder Engineering Prize. KREBS+KIEFER is responsible, in a joint venture with Knight Architects, for the project and structural design of the combined tramway, pedestrian and cycle path bridge in Ulm.

The prize, awarded for the 16th time and offered every two years, acknowledges outstanding engineering achievements in the design, planning and implementation of construction projects. The high-calibre prize jury distinguished the engineering structure as a special achievement of interdisciplinary cooperation, that with its powerful expression lends the site a new identity.

Jury Chairman Prof. Dr.-Ing. Peter Mark praised the building in his laudation at the award ceremony in the Deutsche Museum, Munich: "The structure is particularly characterized by its autonomy in the urban context and has an ordering and identity-creating effect on the turbulent surroundings. At the same time, the form and construction of the powerful building are respectfully responding to the existence of the neighboring listed bridge Neutorbrücke.”

On behalf of the entire team of planners and executors, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jan Akkermann, Managing Partner of KREBS+KIEFER, and Bartlomiej Halaczek, Associate at Knight Architects, jointly presented the implementation of the ideas developed out of the 2012 engineering competition and, using the symbiosis of engineering and traffic functionality, of urban and architectural design and of engineering performance in planning and realization, they illustrated the interdisciplinary interplay that makes up bridge building culture in the best possible way.