ARCADA/UTOPIA - Bridge

 

Project

Engineering and Capital Improvements

1997

San Ysidro, CA

Artwork Budget: $300,000

 

Project Team

ARTIST

Robin Brailsford
 

INDUSTRY RESOURCE

Simon Wong Engineers

 

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT

Marian Marum
Marum Partnership

 

Overview

Simon Wong Engineers brought me onto the design team for a pedestrian. equestrian and vehicular bridge over a tributary of the Tijuana River, in a National Estuarine Research reserve on the US/Mexico border. Horses need a high fence and I imagined it as a folding ribbon of color, alternations between hand enameled porcelain steel panels, and glimpses of the landscape.

 

Goals

I sculpted the columns of the bridge as wanted the to be poured, and added steps to the underside of the decking so that mud dauber swallows would find habitat and create colonies, Deep research produced concept and title - San Ysidro is the Patron Saint of Agriculture, and so one set of panels depicts Ysidro landing on this virgin land. The Little Landers Community settled on this spot 100 years ago, to create a Utopian community of Arts and Crafts homes, and garden food production.

 

Process

Photos here show the bridge when it was built, and in 2014, The intensive habitat restoration has filled an empty river bed, the community is rich with equestrian farms, community gardens, and ocean air. The team worked seamlessly together - the marriage of art, engineering, and environmentalism - to a successful end, for now over 2 decades.

 

Additional Info

As with all my projects here on the CodaWorx page, all the complete projects can be seen on the Facebook LithoMosaics page. Go to FB, then LithoMosaics, then Photos, then Albums, then the named Album you are looking for.