Memorials remind people of events that have taken place. This memorial is a representation of events that have brought discourse into the public psyche for years involving gun violence in America.

The orientation of the tear drop shown in plan from East to West collides with the orientation of a gun’s trigger North to South, which becomes the formal intention as they morph into the memorial. The gun violence memorial park is designed to be subtle in its surroundings, while also communicating a duality of meaning within each space. To encompass the complicated history of gun violence in America, the memorial became a series of moments, when strung together, they tell a powerful story.

Upon entry of the memorial, a walk down the ramp shows trees aligned in rows to signify people standing in solidarity. The entry of the memorial is a wall with missing bricks and each brick has a name of a loved one that is now gone. Entering the hallway, sun light fills the brickless holes, but these holes seen from a different vantage point, which now shine on a solid surface to represent the wall riddled with bullets. Down the hallway is a sculpture of a gun bent back towards the user, to signify the violence we commit on ourselves. Walking out towards the trees, the empty void in the space communicates empathetic loss.