Project name : San Diego Coronado bridge lighting

Location: San Diego/USA

Collaboration with: Buro Happold and Speirs Major

The San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge public art lighting is the largest interactive green energy lighting project in North America. The bridge, built in 1969 in the spectacular context of the bay, has become a symbol of the San Diego area – just as the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges are symbols for San Francisco. The bridge is characterised by its graceful 2.5 mile long curved deck supported by over 30 towers reaching a height of 200 feet. The shipping channels are spanned by the world's longest continuous three-span box girder measuring 1,880 feet. The art project to light this community landmark is a partnership between the Port of San Diego and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), which operates and maintains the bridge. In 2020 a major milestone was achieved when a week long mock up test of lighting three pillars over water was successfully carried out as a part of the detail design phase.

Project videos:

Mockup test on three over water pillars

School outreach programme

Original competition video

Peter Fink undertook as a part of the project development an extensive community outreach programme in six different San Diego neighbourhood schools and in the Children Museum. The school pupils were tasked with constructing a bridge with plastic straws between two chairs eight feet apart and in second stage to illuminate it with UV light and shoot a video on their phones.

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