This project was designed to honor the 20 children and six educators who were slain on Dec 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Designers Dan Affleck and Ben Waldo created a competition-winning design for a memorial space which is both open-ended and unifying in how it is experienced, honoring the full spectrum of emotions this tragedy evokes. They wanted to create a space in which visitors could participate, and which would grow with them over time. Three primary elements the circle, the path, and the tree are the hallmarks of a design that achieves these goals. A circling network of paths takes the visitor through a woodland, across ponds and meadows. The paths connect to one another, and allow the walker to experience the space in their own way and at their own pace before arriving at the center. This honors the process of grieving and remembrance. The Memorial Clearing is framed by two low stone walls with wood tops and two low stone seatwalls. In the center, a water feature sits in a granite basin. The edge of the feature is engraved with the names of the victims. Water flows spiral inwards towards a planter at the center, where a young sycamore is planted to symbolize the young age of the victims. The motion of the water embraces the tree and captures the energy, form, and cycle of the landscape around it. Visitors are encouraged to give a candle or a flower to the water, which will carry the offering across the space in an act of bridging the deceased and the living. After a five-year process of site selection and development of memorial criteria, the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial Commission selected this design out of 189 submissions with overwhelming support from the families of the victims. Dan Affleck and Ben Waldo submitted the design independently as a passion project, and brought the project to SWA after being chosen as finalists.
Southern Gateway Public Green
The Southern Gateway Public Green will cap Highway 35 in South Dallas directly adjacent to the Dallas Zoo and the Oak Cliff neighborhood. The park’s design effectively reconnects the neighborhood, which was cleaved by the highway’s construction many decades ago.
Recognizing the reunification’s significance, the park design introduces the 12th Street pe...
NOAH Ethnographic Village
Armenia has set an initiative to increase global tourism and develop a site within its capital city with majestic views of Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark is purported to have landed. SWA developed a strategic plan based on several principles derived from the existing context of the site: first, to capitalize its proximity to important landmarks that allow for ...
Walmart Home Office Landscape Master Plan
What if the vast and varied landscapes of Northwest Arkansas surrounded and thrived all around the future Walmart Home Office Campus, reversing the typical expectations of a corporate headquarters campus? Walmart as a corporation has always celebrated its hometown heritage, and so their mandate for the 350-acre campus follows that same instinct: to preserve na...
Hennepin Avenue
Hennepin Avenue is the oldest street in Downtown Minneapolis, and has gone through multiple transformations over time. The street is undergoing a major reconstruction, and SWA is leading the effort to enhance the character of Hennepin for years to come. The conceptual approach was developed through a robust public engagement process, and touches on the three m...