9/11 Memorial

Overland Park, Kansas

Design of a public memorial honoring the first responders and thousands of others who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, featuring artifacts recovered from the World Trade Center site

Working with members of the Overland Park Fire Department, a concept- featuring a recovered steel beam from the World Trade Center and incorporating sunlight, water elements and other natural materials – was developed to reverently depict the horrific events of the moning of September 11, 2001. Educational panels depict the journeys of the four planes brought down on 9/11. Each journey follows along the celestial path created as the sun travels through the morning hours of 9/11. A beam of light, cast through the standing artifact, travels along the panels. The exact time of each plane’s impact is marked on the path with a medallion. The haunting images from that day of- people running away from clouds of debris and covered in the remains of the collapsed towers, tears eroding channels on their cheeks- is symbolized by water flowing over a wall of eroded metal with the simple inscription of 09.11.2001. A flag quietly flies above the memorial, which is sited at the entrance to the City of Overland Park’s Fire Training Facility.