MSU reveals final design concepts for the duration -Campus shooting memorial

The Michigan State University has revealed three proposed designs for a permanent monument to the victims of the campus shooting on February 13, 2023, a large update in the university process creates a space to remember those who were lost and others.

From now until March 31, the MSU community can give feedback on the design suggestions through a community survey.

The constant commemoration planning committee on February 13, which is made up of students, faculties, employees and community connections, has also limited the options for the location of the memorial: Sleepy Hollow between Beaumont Tower and the music practice building and the old horticultural garden near the student council building.

After completing the public comment, the committee will summarize the answers and, in coordination with public art in the Campus Committee, recommend a final design for the monument.

Construction is scheduled to begin later in spring and summer months 2025.

The suggestions for the permanent monument include 3D displays, a video presentation and a written explanation for every design.

Proposal one

The design, proposed by the artists Carlos Portillo and Jessica Guinto, places the monument in the old horticultural gardens.

The monument that has built up an existing water feature in the room would surround the existing infrastructure and create a space that “healing, honoring and respecting the wearing and memory process,” wrote the artists.

The design includes a black granite and a white marble reflection pond that would show the surrounding campus in its water. The water would be heated all year round so as not to freeze in winter, and the stone has “spots with sparkling aggregate”, which “ensures visual interest, even if the pond is dry,” wrote the artists.

The design also includes three benches and a circular path with polished Gieselstein to symbolize the three died students.

Around the monument, landscape design and selected green would be a feeling of “intimacy” and “isolation”, the artists wrote. The planted flowers would also serve as memories of “hope, healing and the cyclical nature of memory”.

“Soothing reflections and soothing noises from the water create a calm, sensitive and quiet environment for visitors,” said the artists.

Suggestion two

The “Circles of Reflection” design, proposed by HWKN, an international architectural innovation company based in New York City, sets the monument in Sleepy Hollow and comprises three rooms: a meeting circle, a meditative circle and a social circle.

The circles would share common elements, but all be unique, wrote HWKN in his proposal, and they would have a unique tree in their centers with badges to honor Alexandria Verner, Arielle Anderson and Brian Fraser as “homage to the life they lived”.

The design also includes a path between the circles and the seating.

The company wrote that “souvenir circles” would be a “collection room for the continuation of their memory, a place of refuge for reflection and a connection for those who are looking for comfort in the community”.

“The path that weighs them together leads to another and United Msu,” wrote the company.

Suggestion three

The memorial in Sleepy Hollow, “a place permeated with history and mind”, proposed that James Dinh, an artist based in Los Angeles, is proposed in the Los Angeles area.

The monument consists of two elements: “Camp Circle”, a room that is welcome for visitors, symbolize unity, inclusivity and earth, and “wage window”, three radiant stone walls that create three rooms for reflection.

The three walls can contain engraved text from the relatives of the victims and each kept a colored glass window that “serves as a threshold between the living and the spirit”. The colored glass would “cause lightness and translucation that symbolizes the mind and fragility of life,” wrote Dinh.

The memorial design also includes an accessible path and large stone blocks for seating or tables, in addition to larger ones that could be engraved.

“By using metaphors, simple shapes and permanent materials, the design, a combination of strength and vulnerability, spirituality and earthliness as well as loss and renewal tries to create,” said Dinh in his suggestion. “The design should work on a physical, tactile level and an emotional and metaphorical level and carry its message about time until future generations.”