Hubert Bruce Day (8 December 1927 – 5 December 2015) was an Australian

structural engineer Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of safety, technical, economic ...

, who undertook bridge design works for the

Melbourne & Metropolitan Board of Works The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) was a public utility board in Melbourne, Australia, set up in 1891 to provide water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment functions for the city. In 1992, the MMBW was merged with a number of sm ...

and

Country Roads Board The Country Roads Board was a government authority responsible for the construction and maintenance of main roads in the state of Victoria, Australia between 1913 and 1983. History The Country Roads Board (CRB) was formed to take over responsi ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Australia from the 1950s to 1980s. Bruce Day was the principal design engineer for the bridge over

Punt Road Hoddle Highway is an urban highway in Melbourne linking CityLink and the Eastern Freeway, itself a sub-section of Hoddle Main Road. Both these names are not widely known to most drivers, as the entire allocation is still best known as by the n ...

on the

South Eastern Freeway South Eastern Freeway is a freeway in South Australia (SA). It is a part of the National Highway network linking the state capital cities of Adelaide, SA, and Melbourne, Victoria, and signed as National Highway M1. It carries traffic over ...

, the first major metropolitan freeway in Melbourne. He also designed the elevated roadway section of stage two of the freeway over the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, (Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stre ...

and

Gardiners Creek Gardiners Creek, originally known as Kooyongkoot Creek, is a waterway in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and part of the Yarra River catchment. In a few sparse locations remnant riparian bushland survives, however the majority of its length has ...

. Day was involved in the investigation of the causes of the partial collapse of the

Kings Way Princes Highway is a major road in Australia, extending from Sydney via Melbourne to Adelaide through the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. It has a length of (along Highway 1) or via the former alignments of the hi ...

Bridge, for which he designed post tensioning strengthening. He oversaw the design of three bridges for

St Kilda Junction St Kilda Junction is a major intersection in Melbourne, Australia. It is in the suburb of St Kilda, bordering Windsor and St Kilda East, and is the meeting point of the major roads Punt Road, St Kilda Road, Dandenong Road/Queens Way/Princes ...

while designing one of them himself. Graham Ebbage designed the westernmost bridge spanning Queens Road. These bridges provided grade separation of major roads and tram bridges. Ebbage went on to design bridges in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. In the mid 1970s, Day designed the bridges for the Eastern Freeway stage 1, ensuring that aesthetic considerations were given prominence in this sensitive and controversial project. The ''National Trust Historic Concrete Bridges Study'' identified a number of Day's bridge designs as being of state or regional significance for inclusion on the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. H ...

. In particular the South Eastern Freeway elevated section bridges were identified as being of regional significance and the Eastern Freeway Stage 1 Bridges were identified as being of State Significance.Gary Vines, ''National Trust study of Victoria's Concrete Bridges'', Vol 1., National Trust of Australia, (Victoria)
/ref> Day made an important contribution to the landscape character and built environment of Melbourne, and played a major role in transforming the city during a period of great change when freeways became the natural means of moving traffic.

References

Publications

Abstract of ''Concrete Bridge Articulation'' by H.B. Day
{{DEFAULTSORT:Day, Bruce Engineers from Melbourne 1927 births 2015 deaths Australian civil engineers