UNC Charlotte Remembrance Memorial | Finding Our Center

2022 NOMA Phil Freelon Design Award - Citation

Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
Competition Finalist - 2021

Healing is not an event. It is a process.

The tragic events that occurred on April 30, 2019 inside Kennedy Hall created a void in the UNC-Charlotte campus and greater Charlotte community. Riley Howell and Ellis Reed Parlier were murdered, four students were injured, and countless others’ lives were changed forever.

Tragedies like the one at UNC-Charlotte initiate a journey through stages of trauma, grieving, and healing. This remembrance memorial is not a band aid to the pandemic of gun violence, but a space for the community that is Niner Nation and the city of Charlotte to heal, reflect, and remember. The memorial sits directly in front of Kennedy, the first building on campus, and at the intersection of key campus pathways that link academic buildings around the original campus quad.

Understanding that each individual’s journey through the healing process is unique, the design is composed of a pair of balanced spaces linked by the adjusted campus paths. The Garden of Renewal is a natural space defined by vegetated berms, low site walls, and a tree canopy that offers privacy, protection, and internal focus. If the Garden is a space to escape, then the golden Crown of Hope is a campus beacon optimistically emerging from the ground to eternally frame the sky and commemorate the victims. Mirroring the crown is a circular reflecting pool which holds a film of water that allows people to walk through as well as a low site wall for seating. The perforated brass material of the crown links to UNC-Charlotte’s campus identity and is meant to age gracefully. The lifted Crown of Hope and grounded Garden of Renewal balance each other out, similar to the relationships between the individual and the collective; reflecting to gathering; and sky to earth.