Paper Bridge

To build the bridge, he stacked the blocks of approximately 1,000 sheets each on a wooden formwork, smashing the paper keystone in at the end to make it self-supporting. Regarding concerns of the bridge getting wet, the artist told Dezeen, "When it rains, the bridge gets wet, but the compression is so tight across the bridge that very little water ingresses into the paper. Any water that does forces the fibers to swell. This causes the compression to increase and makes the bridge stronger." The bridge/art installation was expected to be open to the public from the 9th to the 18th of May, after which "the paper used in PaperBridge will be recovered and returned to Burneside Mill for recycling - re-plulping and made into new paper," per Steve Messam's website.