DONALD MACDONALD
1516 Folsom St.
San Francisco, CA
94104, USA
Donald MacDonald Architects LLC
DONALD MACDONALD
1516 Folsom St.
San Francisco, CA
94104, USA
We work with public forums and committees across North America to deliver successful bridges of all sizes.
Our process is designed to deliver bridges that are emblematic of the people and places they serve and involves well-managed collaboration with engineers, clients, and public stakeholders. This approach leverages decades of experience working directly with community organizations to tell their story of a place, and generates concepts for bridges inspired by the people who use them. Most importantly, our process results in long-term cooperation between the engineering team, public, and decision-makers, engaging each party in a partnership for long term stewardship.
We manage and create participatory community design processes. We rely on direct dialogue with the public to inspire our design concepts and convey meaning into structured form. This research is distilled and leveraged to support an inclusive process with clients and stakeholders.
We communicate architectural expression, materiality, and the human-scale while creating iconic structures. How we work:
- Fly through models give the viewer the full experience of traversing the bridge and how it will look from the shore and help the client/stakeholders envision a complex environment with multiple tie-ins in real-time.
- Parametric design tools and 3D printing informs resource optimization and prefabrication techniques.
- Detailed models and prototypes are validated before designs are finalized.
- Engineer’s construction drawings for compliance with the final public approvals.
- Integrated urban design makes bridge landings fit into existing neighborhoods.
Our bridge structures span waterways in some of our nation’s most popular cities and districts, and act as landmarks for locals and visitors. We help cities and project teams successfully draw upon symbols and metaphors that inspire the community during the design process and well beyond. See below how the language of bridge design lives on:
