Four-level Stack
Peter Merrington and Ilana Mitchell
2017 - ongoing

An on-going research project investigating the Four-level Stack motorway interchange. The design goal of the four-level stack interchange is to enable traffic to change direction from any point without deceleration, creating a smooth transition to a new course of travel, in seemingly frictionless motion.
Since the first Four-level Stack interchange was built in Los Angeles in 1953, the design has been replicated internationally and there are now over a hundred worldwide. While most are in the US, there are three examples in southern England and individual constructions in cities such as Durban in South Africa and Caracas in Venezuela.
We have been investigating these forms through different creative methods. We began by mapping their occurrences across the globe, tracing their routes through virtual encounters on screen and researching their history and cultural representation. We then explored them in situ by driving around them and walking routes that circumnavigated them, documenting these journeys through drawing, film, photography and audio. Through these processes we have begun to gather a unique collection of materials that trace the presence of these contradictory constructions on different people’s lives.
In the next phase of our work we are planning a new project to creatively investigate the Stacks in Spain, Ghana, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Venezuela, Canada and India.
Essays, Exhibitions, Screenings and Conferences
2022 ‘Copulating giants or concrete cathedrals? A short history of the Four-level Stack’, Society + Space
2021 Im|mobile lives in turbulent times: Methods and Practices of Mobilities Research, Northumbria University and Lancaster University
2017 Mobile Utopia, The Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster University
2017 Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham