The Bay Line

The High Line in New York has been featured everywhere in the world of architectural news recently; the result of an ambitious project which aimed to transform a section of the former elevated freight railway into a public space. Even more ambitious, although still only at the proposal stage, is The Bay Line (PDF). Conceived by Ronald Rael at Rael San Fratello, the plan is to redevelop the old span of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco when it is replaced by a new bridge around 2013. Quoting this article at TreeHugger:

“The (old) bridge is strong enough to support the weight of 37,041 three bedroom modular homes.”

The proposal document makes for a very interesting read; the diagrams illustrate an extremely efficient use of space, in a structure which would otherwise have to be demolished at great cost.

Via TreeHugger and SF StreetsBlog