Though it seems like just yesterday, this year marked the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. To honour the occasion, a $500 million monument – the most expensive ever built – has been constructed in memorial of those who lost their lives within the towers, in the airplanes, and those who died during the rescue effort.
The monument consists mainly of a museum and two gigantic reflecting pools of water with waterfalls. There’s one north and one south, each about an acre in size, positioned in the footprint of their corresponding towers. On the edges of the pool, the names of all 2,983 people who died are inscribed. They seem to have been placed with no method of organization – they are not listed alphabetically, nor are they presented in specific groups. It is said that this supposed disarray reflects the chaos and disorder with which all the victims lost their lives.
However, the arrangement of each name is far from random because underneath the confusion, the planners of the memorial have managed to honour all the thousands of complex social and professional connections and relationships forged before, and even during, the attacks.
The sheer number of relationships presented made it impossible to arrange by hand. Instead, a computer algorithm was custom-developed by media design firm Local Projects and software artist Jer Thorp. It took months to develop and tweak to full functionality, and a manual interface allowed for architects to make adjustments as needed.
The algorithm works in two stages: In the first, clusters of people (ranging from 2 to as many as 70) were formed using input from the families and co-workers of the victims to dictate names that should appear together on the monuments. In the second stage, the clusters are fit together like messed up, irregular puzzle pieces to span along the edges of the pools. Finally, all the victims’ names were carved on brass plates and mounted on the memorials. The overall groupings are based on when/where everybody died. The north pool includes those who were killed in the North Tower and Flight 11, and in the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Centre (the original monument was destroyed on September 11th). The south pool honours the South Tower and Flight 175 victims, the rescue workers, the victims of the Pentagon and Flight 77, and the passengers of Flight 93, deemed as heroes for having thwarted the plane heading to the Capitol-crashing instead into a Pennsylvanian field.
Obviously, much engineering had gone into the memorials themselves, but the 16-acre Memorial plaza in which the pools are located is also an example of the planning that went into the project. It is thought to be one of the most sustainable, eco-friendly spaces ever created. More than 400 trees surround the pools, which are irrigated with rainwater collected in underground storage tanks. Furthermore, systems that deal with irrigation, storm water, and pest management are designed to conserve energy, water, and other resources.
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