Refine bridge landing visuals and add rising 'RESEARCH BRIDGE' reveal

[danielsobat1]

Motivation

• Implement a literal, monochrome bridge hero that reads as an integrated background perspective to match the provided reference and the site’s white/black theme.
• Keep the landing experience narrative-driven so scrolling feels like moving forward down the bridge toward opportunities.
• Surface the final “RESEARCH BRIDGE” reveal with a rising animation to emphasize the endpoint of the scroll-forward journey.

Description

• Rebuilt the homepage hero in src/app/page.tsx to render a perspective bridge scene (angled roadway, lane lines, deck accents and subtle tower/cable linework) and restyled supporting CTAs and sections for a monochrome aesthetic.
• Removed client-side theme polling and related state to simplify mounting logic while preserving the existing For You notification behavior.
• Added a CSS @keyframes rise animation and applied it via a .rise-text wrapper so the “RESEARCH BRIDGE” heading animates up as it comes into view.
• Kept existing copy updates, CTA flows (Explore Research, For You Picks, Apply to Research, See the Bridge Map) and accessibility-friendly markup.

Testing

• Started the dev server with npm run dev -- --hostname 0.0.0.0 --port 3000, which compiled and served the homepage successfully (GET / returned 200) but emitted Google Fonts download warnings in this environment (fallback fonts used).
• Captured a full-page screenshot with Playwright by navigating to http://127.0.0.1:3000 and saving artifacts/bridge-home.png, which completed successfully.
• No automated unit tests were added or modified in this change set.

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Codex Task

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Project	Deployment	Review	Updated (UTC)
researchbridge	Ready	Preview, Comment	Jan 22, 2026 1:17am