Golden Bridge, Ba Na Hills, Da Nang (Vietnam)

Standing out of the magnificent nature of Ba Na Hills in Da Nang City, the Golden Bridge, also known as CauVang, is no less than an iconic masterpiece of Vietnam. Since its official launch, its reputation went beyond Vietnam's borders: it has been praised as one of the world's most spectacular walking bridges by international prestigious architecture newspapers and social networks. As a part of the SunWorld Ba Na Hills area, the Golden Bridge is nested on the Paradise Garden and is used to take visitors from the mountain foot or French village to Le Jardin D’Amour gardens.

The bridge was named “Golden Bridge” as its guardrails has been covered with gold. Lift by two giant stone hands, the bridge spans 12.8 m wide and 150 m long and comprises 8 arches, the longest of which mea-sures 21.2 m. According to TA Landscape Architecture design studio, its design embodies the hands of the Mountain God drawing from inside a rocky mountain a golden sash to carry villagers to the Paradise Garden, perfectly matching the fantasy and fairy theme of Ba Na Hills.

At the height of 1,414 m above sea level, the Golden Bridge is even more overwhelming with the ancient-looking and mossy giant hands supporting the bridge in the green majestic nature embraced by cloud and mist.

The bridge was considered by Archdaily, one of the world’s leading architectural news weblog, as one of the world's most unique bridges. The bridge was also praised by other architectural sites such as Design Boom and Creapills. CNN named it on The Guardian’s list of most striking pedestrian bridges and The Independent’s top 10 most incredible bridges. It was also featured on the Instagram account of Street Art Globe (an account with 7.1 million followers) where a video on the bridge had 1.3 million views and more than 4,000 comments.

BUILDING IN THE FOREST WITH MAPEI SOLUTIONS

It can be said that the bridge is a place where man-made and nature-made beauty, construction technology and art meet. The giant hands look like they are carved from stone, but they aren’t. The skeleton of the hands was designed and covered with steel meshes before it was covered with fiberglass. The entire construction of the bridge took about a year and was very ambitious and challenging. The construction process was fully implemented amidst the forest and mountainous areas where every access was very limited.

Therefore, it was impossible to mix concrete on site. Besides, transporting ready-mixed concrete for such a long distance at high temperatures yet maintaining the required mechanical strengths for pillars and foundation to support the whole bridge’s weight was really a thorny problem for the owner, Sun Group.

After site-trials, evaluation of product quality and cost effectivity, Mapei Vietnam, the local subsidiary of the Mapei Group, was entrusted to be the supplier of concrete admixtures for all pillars and foundation of the projects. Mapei Vietnam’s Technical Services proposed to use DYNAMON SR2 VN, a superplasticizer based on acrylic polymer for ready-mixed concrete, which is manufactured and distributed by Mapei Vietnam and especially suitable wherever there is the need for a strong water reduction, along with relatively high mechanical strength. Its performances make it particularly suitable when it is necessary to carry out casting at high temperatures and when the concrete must be transported over long distances.

The counterpart of DYNAMON SR2 VN on the international market is DYNAMON SR2.