Project Title: Malibu Access Point
Location: Malibu, California.
Built, Unbuilt or Under Construction: Unbuilt
Firm: Bionic
Website: bioniclandscape.com
Project Team Members: Marcel Wilson, Principal; Kelly Schoonmaker, Associate

Project Description: California’s coast is largely public. But in Malibu, the convergence of extreme wealth and extreme beauty challenges the definition of public by limiting beach access. A public agency hired Bionic to design an urban beach access point. Five feet wide, sixty feet long, and twenty feet deep, the site is wedged between two multi-story residences and over a thirty-six-inch storm drain with 40,000 cars that pass by per day. The firm met these attenuating conditions of this difficult-to-find location with a mirror-polished, stainless steel gate and staircase that provides a clear marker for beach access, security for neighbors, and a kaleidoscopic encounter with the Pacific Ocean.