The Architect’s Newspaper Best of Design Awards have recognized the Botanical Garden of Healing: Dedicated to Victims of Gun Violence as an “Editor’s Pick” in the “Unbuilt - Public” category. The Seventh Annual Best of Design Awards is a unique project-based awards program that showcases great buildings, building elements, interiors, and installations. Over 800 submissions were received from all over North America. The Best of Design jury judges entries based on several criteria—strength of the presentation, evidence of innovation, creative use of new technology, sustainability, and, most importantly, good design.

The Botanical Garden of Healing began construction in March 2020, with the first phase expected to be completed by Fall 2020. This experiential landscape will become the first memorial of its kind in the country — and a dream realized for schoolteacher Marlene Miller Pratt, whose 18-year-old son was killed in 1988.  Echoing national headlines that Americans are growing numb to gun violence, she grew dismayed with the apparent acceptance of gun deaths in her neighborhood and in 2017 rallied together like-minded mothers amongst a survivor’s support group.

The memorial design was informed through interactive community workshops that gave life to the mothers' vision of a peaceful and contemplative place to remember and celebrate their loved ones. As ambient sounds from a row of lamppost wind chimes provide a soothing backdrop masking traffic noise, visitors will walk a sinuous path paved with the engraved names and ages of victims from 1976 to the present — providing an incremental discovery of the magnitude of gun deaths. A perspectival sculpture fabricated in wood and metal represents the family and the larger community as a collage of human silhouettes — the solids and voids illustrating the ever-present sense of absence when loved ones are lost to tragedy. Reaching the central plaza, circular benches allow for individuals and families to read inscriptions of remembrance surrounded by colorful gardens tended by the mothers.

To learn more about the awards and see a complete list of winners, click here: https://archpaper.com/2019/12/2019-an-best-of-design-awards/#gallery-0-slide-0