Raising a Pedestrian Path and Awareness
Creating a safe pathway to the Trestles, a nationally recognized surfing destination in the San Onofre State Beach, provides an opportunity to expose and preserve the delicacies of the uniquely Southern Californian ecosystem. Activated by the pedestrian traffic of both local surfers and other visitors, Trestles is also poised to become a regional wetland preserve and is already historical significant mecca for the native Acjachemen tribe and surfers alike.
Considering the notion of time, the footbridge will serve as a symbolic datum for this site history and ecology, providing a path that transitions the traveler in a series of slow movements while feeling suspended in time and place. Disengaging from the destination for a moment, the bubble provides protection and a place of safe observation. In this space of detachment from purpose, awareness begins. The path is fluid and fragile like the wetland below. Mundane thoughts are slowly drown out by the steady rhythm of the waves on the shore as symbolically recreated sound wave pattern of the vertical railings. Motion activated electrical generators throughout the structure collect the vibrations of these cable strung poles, storing energy to be released to LEDs at night. The wind catches each bubble, dynamically suspended in its intersection with the path. The fiberglass bubble and structure is allowed to oscillate horizontally with a degree of independence from the wooden path; the frothy moment at the edge of the surf when a powerful wave surrenders to the sand and returns to the ocean.
This suspended experience of the sublime is a familiar desire that humans have towards the feeling of floating in water. An individual chooses to engage the path, like the water, in a series of prepositions: swimming in, riding on, giving over to a larger experience. Primary circulation provides accessibility and ease of passage but also the opportunity to pause.
The primal force of the ocean is in itself a catalyst for change, for learning. We destroy things, because we do not understand their value. “We admire civilizations for the man-made monuments that transform the landscape. The Pyramids. Stonehenge. The Acjachemen honor their ancestors for leaving no trace,” writes Karin Klein in her article A Victory without Scars responding to the recent rejection of a proposed Toll Road through the San Onofre State Beach. Lifting the trail from the ground, like removing a bandage and allowing a deep incision to breathe begin to heal. As the wetlands to naturally and on its own reclaim the paths warn invasive foot traffic the observer notices that this time the victory includes a scar.
