The City Link: A Two-Level Bridge That Turns Copenhagen's Harbour Crossing into a Public Landscape

Most bridges exist to be crossed as quickly as possible. The City Link asks you to slow down. Set in Copenhagen, a city whose daily rhythm runs on bicycles, the proposal splits a harbour crossing into two distinct worlds: a floating landscape at water level where people swim, gather and play, and an elevated skywalk where cyclists and pedestrians move through framed views of the city. The central idea is simple and quietly radical: infrastructure should behave like a public park that happens to connect two shores.

Developed by Ethan Team and published as a project on uni.xyz, the scheme sits at the intersection of waterfront architecture and people-centred urban design. It takes Copenhagen's cycling culture as a given and its working harbour as a constraint, then builds a structure that serves both without letting either dominate. The result is a red steel truss that reads as a landmark from a distance and as a sequence of rooms up close.

A Red Truss That Claims the Harbour as Public Ground

The aerial view establishes the project's scale and its posture toward the water. The truss spans the channel in a long, confident line, with a yacht moored alongside to remind us this is a working harbour, not a decorative pond. The red-tinted rendering is a stylistic choice, but it reinforces the project's identity: the bridge is meant to be seen, named and remembered, not absorbed into the background of the city.

What matters here is the dual-layered strategy hiding inside that single silhouette. Conventional bridges optimise for transit efficiency. The City Link instead stacks two programmes, a water-oriented lower level and an uninterrupted upper skywalk, so that the same footprint delivers mobility and recreation at once. It is a compact argument that public space and infrastructure do not need separate budgets or separate sites.

Arches at Eye Level: How the Structure Meets the Street

The two ground-level views are where the project earns its human scale. From the plaza, cyclists roll past readers seated in the foreground, and the red arches rise behind them as a backdrop rather than a barrier. In the second view, a courier pushing a bicycle anchors the long truss span, a reminder that this crossing is designed for the everyday traffic of the city, not just for weekend promenades.

The architectural language of red structural arches and exposed steel framework does real work here. The colour gives the bridge a bold identity, while the open lattice of the truss keeps it transparent, so views across the water are never fully blocked. Elevating the primary volume frees the ground for open public interaction, and that decision is visible in how comfortably the plaza absorbs people, bikes and seating at the bridge's foot.

Five Layers, One Section: Reading the Hierarchical Analysis

The exploded axonometric is the most revealing drawing in the set. It separates the bridge into pier, floating structure, traffic space, upper space and truss superstructure, laying bare the logic that the renderings only hint at. At the bottom, a flexible floating platform system allows adaptable configurations: shallow pools, gathering areas, interactive water features and recreational zones. Its variable geometry is what gives the lower level resilience, letting it respond to changing water and changing uses while still supporting pedestrian and cycling movement.

Above, a robust steel superstructure anchors the elevated skywalk, and movable central segments allow portions of the bridge to rotate when ships pass. This is the detail that makes the whole scheme credible. Lifting the main volume preserves maritime functionality, and the rotating segments mean vessels can move through without severing circulation for long. The diagram shows engineering and spatial planning resolved in the same section, rather than one compromising the other.

Inside the Skywalk: A Timber Room Above the Canal

The interior rendering shifts the mood entirely. A timber-floored deck runs between red cross-braced frames, potted plants soften the edges, and visitors pause to look out at a canal lined with historic facades. The skywalk is presented not as a tube for getting across but as a protected yet open environment, enclosed enough to feel like a room, porous enough to keep the city in view.

This is where the project's spatial hierarchy pays off. Users experience shifting perspectives as they move through it: water at eye level below, skyline views above, and layered circulation paths in between. The warm floor against the red steel creates a clear material contrast, structure overhead and comfort underfoot, which helps the deck read as a place to linger rather than a corridor to hurry through.

Why This Project Matters

The City Link makes a persuasive case that a bridge can be a destination in its own right. By stacking a floating recreational landscape beneath an elevated cycling and walking route, the proposal turns a single piece of infrastructure into two kinds of public space, each with its own relationship to the water. In a city where so many residents cycle daily, that kind of layered thinking feels less like a luxury and more like an overdue upgrade to how crossings are imagined.

Just as important, the design respects the harbour as a working environment. The elevated volume and rotating central segments let ships pass without sacrificing the continuity of the route, showing that public ambition and maritime function can coexist in one structure. For young designers thinking about waterfront cities, the lesson is clear: start with how people want to occupy the edge of the water, then let the engineering serve that experience.

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About the Designers

Designer: Ethan Team

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Project credits: The City Link by Ethan Team.