Designed to dissuade

Content warning: this post discusses topics related to suicide.

Bridges are fascinating places that people associate with important memories and strong emotions. One of the bridges I’m working on now – the Little Current Swing Bridge in Ontario – is a great example. I remember being taken to visit it when I was eleven and it’s stayed with me ever since, tied up with memories of my aunt and my sister. I was captivated by how the bridge moved and sat there watching it, thinking it was alive. As I’ve grown into my work as a bridge architect that fascination has stayed with me. It’s the public dimension of bridges that appeals most, the way they connect to memory in a way that buildings often don’t. 

Just as bridges are meaningful structures in themselves, their locations are often special too. They might be set against a spectacular context, high up, or positioned over fast-moving water. But these things that make bridges memorable, fascinating and well-used are sadly exactly the same things that can draw people who are contemplating suicide. 

Dissuasion through activity

As bridge architects, suicide dissuasion is an important aspect of our work that we don’t often discuss in public. Sometimes we are asked to explore how existing bridges can be adapted to deter potential suicides, but increasingly it’s coming up in the briefing for new-build bridges too, particularly if the bridge is going to be very high or prominent. While much of our work is about creating bridges for life’s happier moments, it also involves looking at how we can design safer spaces for the times when the people who use our bridges are at their most vulnerable.

Historically, the response to a perceived risk of suicide has been to put up big fences. This is a reductive answer to a highly complex and nuanced issue. Granted, it immediately lowers the risk of people jumping from the structure, but it makes crossing the bridge less comfortable, even claustrophobic, for all. One of our biggest motivators in this area, then, is finding ways to protect users so that bridges continue to be safe and enjoyable spaces. One of the most effective and powerful ways of reassuring people and discouraging them from a suicide attempt is to design bridges that are popular and well-used. People look after people, so we need to do all we can to encourage appropriate activity at all times of day or night. That means good lighting, good seating, and the proper integration of bridges into wider urban networks. 

Physical and emotional deterrents

Public Health England supports this view, with guidance making it clear that the goal is to reduce suicides as much as possible while balancing that against public access and enjoyment. We recently worked on a study that applied this thinking across a series of bridges in the UK – several of them listed heritage structures – and explored the feasibility of installing different deterrent systems. Our greatest challenge was that all five of the bridges were heavily used and much-loved by the public, meaning that the knee-jerk, big-fence response would have a highly negative impact. Instead, we focused on architectural quality: how we could thoughtfully support suicide prevention using the kind of great design that makes spaces more enjoyable.

We proposed a series of options across three physical categories. Of these, barriers are a well-evidenced approach – tall physical structures that dissuade or prevent access, with strong research supporting their effectiveness. Delay methods are less studied but still useful. They might include a planted strip between the walkway and the parapet edge, which visually flags that someone has moved out of the normal user zone, attracting the attention of passers-by. Finally, there are catch systems – usually nets beneath the deck – from which people can be retrieved and helped. 

Balancing safety, cost and architectural heritage on bridges

We assessed each of these approaches individually against architectural quality and the estimated improvement in suicide prevention – which is extremely difficult to quantify. Where relevant, we also demonstrated what could be done without negatively affecting the heritage quality of the bridges or user enjoyment. By plotting this analysis visually our client could see at a glance whether a particular option would have significant architectural impact but marginal safety benefit, or vice versa.

We then mapped several options across the bridges and overlaid them with costings. This supported our client’s internal conversations about funding and priorities, giving them the tools to make informed decisions. It also allowed them to weigh up physical interventions alongside softer measures such as CCTV, walking patrols and improved lighting. In this instance, our client had assumed that the heritage value of the bridges would mean very few options were feasible, so they were delighted that we found some that could work across all criteria.

The psychology of suicide dissuasion 

Understanding the psychology of a person contemplating suicide is absolutely vital in this area of work. For our feasibility study, we were fortunate in that the client body included a public health practitioner with extensive experience of the subject, and we were able to translate her insights into our design considerations. They shaped decisions about sight lines, parapet design, surface finishes and climbability, enabling us to make recommendations that would maximise opportunities for a life-saving pause or public intervention.

Similar psychological insights were of value while designing Keel Crossing in Sunderland, a new-build pedestrian bridge which connects the football stadium to the city, and which has quickly become a vibrant and well-used piece of urban realm, especially on match days. From the start, we worked with stakeholders including Samaritans and the police to understand best practice in suicide dissuasion, and the design implications of this. As a result, we could be strategic and targeted in the measures we took at different points along the crossing.

Strategic design measures 

Although the parapets reach above head-height, we avoided the prison-like aesthetic of a monotonous wall of steel by using high-quality materials and designing an undulating form that responds to its context and creates a rhythm across the whole bridge.

The enclosure feels open and welcoming because you can see through it: it’s composed of vertical stainless-steel posts to give views out but with minimal climbability. Integrated lighting makes users feel less exposed over the very long span and – given that people contemplating suicide generally don’t want to be visible – removes an element of opportunity as well as increasing the chances of intervention by members of the public. The wave-like form also enabled us to offer greater protection at certain points, while also creating more generous places for people to stop or gather.