Ebb and Flow is a 55-metre animated light installation on Marine Gateway’s 29-storey south tower facade. It connects us to Vancouver’s maritime environment by visualizing the twice-daily rise and fallof the local tide.

A glowing white light glides up and down the “scale” of the Marine Gateway tower, backed in green light as the tide goes out (ebb), then changing to blue as it comes in (flow). As the tide shifts, the faint trail of white light tells you if it is rising or falling. Each two floors of the building represent roughly one foot of tide height. Take a few minutes to watch the lights travel and surge very slowly on the tower, moving in real time with the tide.

High and low tides are about six hours apart. The more you watch, the more you sense the natural rhythms of the tide – in keeping with the ebb and flow of activity at Marine Gateway and the Marine Drive Canada Line Station throughout the day.

Urban Visuals’ team of Nathan Whitford and Konstantinos Mavromichalis are multi-disciplinary artists specializing in responsive lighting and digital media. By combining technology and architecture, Urban Visuals’ goal is to create environments and experiences that both inform and engage. Urban Visuals operates out of Vancouver, Toronto and London, England.