A Month of Tides

Atrium of the Miami Dade Community College, Miami, Florida. 1993.
60’ x 3’, fabric plastic, steel cable, timers and motor.

This school is only three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean but the nearby ocean’s twice-a-day tide is easily forgotten to the people who work inside the concrete and glass building. A Month of Tides brought a sense of the sea’s tide into the huge atrium at the core of the school. At high tide, the 60-foot-tall transparent blue tube rose to the top floor of the atrium, and slowly lowered to the floor by low tide. The movement, which followed the actual tidal sequence in the bay, averaged a speed of one foot per eight minutes. Like the tide, it was hard to see the blue tube moving by just watching it for a moment. Students and staff using the building would see changes in the tidal register’s height over the course of their day.