Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
WKBW 7 News Buffalo
Finalists present their designs to 5/14 Memorial Commission
By Taylor Epps,
2024-04-30
It's been more than a year of planning and sifting through designs, but now the 5/14 Memorial Commission is down to three.
"The day I got the email that I was a finalist, I was just humbled and truly grateful," said Kristen Locke, a finalist.
In a private presentation at Rich Products, each group showed their design to the commission and family members of victims of the mass shooting at Tops.
"We want to be protective and private for the families because we've been dealing with several emotions going through this process and sometimes it was painstaking," said Rev. Mark Blue, Chair of the Commission.
Who are the finalists?
Watts Architects and Engineers Ed Watts says it feels personal as a Buffalonian
"Having been affected by the tragedy that happened being a local resident here, it's an opportunity to lend our voice to help memorialize lives that were lost," said Ed Watts, President of Watts Architects and Engineers.
AIA Charlotte Kristen Locke's family moved to Buffalo in the 1940s
Kristen Locke is a partner and Architect at BeeHyyve in North Carolina and tapped Rachel Cotter to help with her design. Locke has roots in Buffalo.
"It would mean the world to me, my great-uncle came here in 1946, for me it would be an honor to represent my family...building something here," said Locke.
Taylor Epps Douglass Alligood and Jin Young Song say design can make change
Jin Young Song is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University at Buffalo, working with Douglass Alligood. The pair wants to make an impact on several levels.
"A sense of restoring that feeling of safety, that comfort in your backyard, we're hoping it can help restore that," said Alligood.
What would designs look like? These will be more than monuments, more like places to come and reflect on the lives lost. Here's how each finalist described it.
Finalist 1: "Conversations revolved around community having time and space and opportunity to heal, having a journey together that will take them to whatever that space is they need to be," said Burt Pinnock, Principal at Baskervill.
Finalist 2: "This is a memorial but it's also a place where we can come together, dissolve barriers, move on, build a better future, learn and play," said Cotter.
"Proving that the individuals that lost their lives that day, their lives mattered," said Locke.
Finalist 3: "A park-like setting, so everyone can come and enjoy and also some place to educate," said Jin Young Song.
What's next? The commission will come together and vote for and they will make an announcement in a few weeks, around the two-year mark of 5/14.
Get updates delivered to you daily. Free and customizable.
It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency:
Our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. As a platform hosting over 100,000 pieces of content published daily, we cannot pre-vet content, but we strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation.
Comments / 0