SITE:
In the seawall and pavement, a cut that brings in water from the Mersey River; the site once of a floating roadway for loading and unloading ships. A brick wall, almost person-height, borders the cut; light-posts are embedded with in the wall; a wood-and-steel footbridge crosses over the cut. Each day, the tide rises and falls thirty feet.

PROGRAM:
A new use for the cut, made obsolete now that the floating roadway has been removed; reconnection of Pier Head, isolated by the cut, to the north.

PROJECT:
A machine for walking and sitting: floating bridges that rise and fall with the tide.

Between the lightposts of the cut, a section of wall – the width of the existent bridge – is cut away and collapsed onto the ground. The fallen wall, sunken partially in the pavement, functions now as a ramp: it leads up onto the stone curb at the base of the wall, and out onto each floating bridge.

The floating bridges cross the cut in different directions: from one end to one side -- from one side to the other, in a straight line or on a diagonal – from one side off to nowhere (the last bridge, toward the far end of the cut, is not a bridge but a cantilever, out over the river).

The bridges are transparent pathways through the air: planes of grating transformable half into steps and half into benches. In the middle of each bridge is a tree. Beneath the tree, and supporting the bridge, a round hollow column slides up and down over a cylinder fixed to the bed of ground at the bottom of the water. At the end of the sliding column is a floatation device, submerged in the water.

The tide raises and lowers the float, which pushes the column up and pulls the column down, raising and lowering the bridge one step and one bench at a time. As the tide rises, the steps and benches step up from the middle of the bridge; as the tide falls, the steps and benches step down from the ends of the bridge. The step-risers slide up and down tracks that double as posts for a cable railing, its length adjusted by pulley and counterweights. The tree rises and falls with the tide.

At mid-tide, the bridge is a level passage, parallel to the river below: you walk across the cut, you walk past the tree, on your way from one side to the other.

At low tide, you step down into the cut: you might sit on a bench, facing the tree below you, facing away from the city – you’re in a park now, enclosed in an enclave inside the city – you continue on your way then, and step up onto the other side of the cut.

At high tide, you step up above the cut: when you sit down now, your back is to the tree, you’re on a look-out facing the city – you continue on your way then and step down to the other side.

On the furthest bridge, you step out, you step up, you step down, over the river: you’re on a bridge to nowhere – you gaze out onto the river, into the distance.

The water caught in the cut functions as a ground, a swelling and sinking ground that supports – tenuously – pathways in multiple directions: the pathways rise and fall with the tide – the pathways cross the cut at different angles, sending people out to the city on different routes, crossing people with people and intersecting the grid of the city.