IT EMPLOYS some of the same technologies as the Falkirk Wheel, famously devised with the help of Lego, and represents a first for Glasgow as well as being unique in the world.

However, Tony Kettle, architect of the two engineering structures, said the new £90 million bridge across the Clyde linking Renfrew and Yoker will bring a positive boost for the area but will also be “controversial”.

The crossing will be the centrepiece of a planned Clyde Waterfront and Renfrew Riverside project, which is expected to create more than 2,300 jobs and bring £867m into the local economy.

When completed in 2022 the city region deal-funded crossing will be the first opening road bridge over the river, following its Falkirk cousin which is still the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the world.

Mr Kettle, who sees his creations as both “engineering and artwork”, said: “It’s a world’s first in many ways. I think it is the longest cable-stayed moving bridge for cars.

“It had to work within very tight budget constraints and somehow it had to capture the spirit of its place. It has a kind of diagonal cut through it that represents the cut where the old ships were built in the dry docks.

“We captured that in a new kind of bridge form.

“It’s got to be positive because it’s linking communities and it’s creating a new landmark, actually, that should draw people to come and see it as it opens and closes.

“It’s using some of the same technologies as the Falkirk Wheel and trying to create a very simple piece of engineering that’s elegant but has a landmark quality to it that will draw people to a visitor centre, say, to come and see it in action.”

Glasgow Times:

Mr Kettle (pictured above) developed the Falkirk caissons with an unconventional miniature model, he says: “By connecting them with the Lego cogs I was able to maintain that horizontality.”

One of his longest-running, most high profile, literally, projects anywhere in the world is close to completion.

Glasgow Times:

(The $1.8 billion Lakhta Centre in St Petersburg, above, is at 462 metres (1,516ft), the tallest building in Europe, and is also shrouded in controversy but now due this year, after moving site, after being steered by UNESCO, and after 17 years)

Mr Kettle took on the job with RMJM initially before picking the site up again backed by gas giant Gazprom with the Kettle Collective practice founded in partnership with Colin Bone in 2012.

Glasgow Times:

(It contrasts with a series of desert projects the firm has undertaken in the Middle East, including the soon-to-be completed Dubai Electricity and Water Authority Solar Innovation Centre, above, which has won several awards already for its sustainability)

Both extremes are linked by green credentials he believes can be transferred to help create Scotland’s ideal passive home.

In Russia, he has managed to reduce energy usage to 40 per cent against a conventional tower, while in Dubai, “the Islamic geometry has a function as well”.

He said: “I am looking at transferring some of those ideas back to the UK.”