Bolivia Humanitarian Bridge
Design and construction of a 24-metre steel truss bridge in rural Bolivia as part of a post-graduation engineering expedition.
Straight after graduating from Imperial College, the first engineering project was a steel truss bridge in Oruro, Bolivia. No software, no reports, no meetings. Formwork, concrete, steel, wood.
As Foundations Section Lead, the work covered foundation formwork design and construction, concrete mixing, procurement of timber from local suppliers, and building the temporary launch structures needed to get the bridge across the span. A secondary 8-metre wooden bridge was also constructed as part of the same expedition.
The physical constraints were the interesting ones: a remote location, local materials, a mixed team working across language barriers, and a manual labour force to coordinate. Steel angle sections were marked and drilled by hand; bolt holes required precision without the tools a site in the UK would have assumed were present.
The project connected a rural community that had previously had no direct crossing. It was a three-month exercise in working with what was available, and in the practical difference between engineering on paper and engineering in the field.