A Sacred Grove
Finalist Proposal for the Metro Memorial Park Project

The originally chosen site for the Memorial Park, on a parcel on the south side of New Hampshire Avenue, elicited strong resistance from the immediate neighborhood, long familiar with the neglect of the woodland. A better site was chosen and agreed to near the Greater St. Paul's Baptist Church, and as one of three semi-Finalists, Hunt Laudi Studio participated in the second round of the design competition, and the proposal "A Sacred Grove" was ultimately chosen as the winning entry.

The ancient impulse to commemorate, is the origin of the sacred grove, where an exceptional event, often long forgotten, becomes transmuted into a destination where succeeding generations can find solace. As such, we proposed a sacred grove to commemorate the nine victims of the accident as a place that can also re-knot the broken threads of the surrounding urban fabric.

The church overlooks the site as a caretaker. The garden weaves its pattern into the memorial and makes it part of the labor of gardeners to make the land fruitful. Together they tie the memorial to people's everyday lives to make it a living and active place.