5/14 Memorial
Location: Buffalo, NY
Type: Memorial
Status: Competition Finalist
Role: Concept Design - with Beehyyve, JGMA, & Weston & Sampson
In embarking upon this solemn endeavor to commemorate the lives lost and lives impacted by the racially motivated attack of May 14, 2022 at Tops Grocery in Buffalo, New York, we approached this project with a deep recognition of the enduring legacy of systemic racism and a solemn commitment to building a better future, one rooted in remembrance, healing, and resilience. Every soul that entered the grocery store that day had a family, a life filled with love and community. They were grandmothers, teachers, activists. Some were working in the store; others were picking up food and birthday cakes for their families. 10 never made it home.
Through the memorial, we aimed to create a space of solace, reflection, and hope, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, and a reminder of the urgent need to confront the injustices that continue to plague our society. Located along Jefferson Ave in close proximity to the Tops Grocery store, the site has a prominent urban presence, providing an opportunity to make the memorial itself visible to the busy commercial traffic along the corridor, while also intimately serving the immediate community with easy access from the Dodge St residential areas. It is this duality that informed our overall site strategy of developing a highly visible urban “front yard” and a more intimate community “back yard.”
The “front yard” includes a series of 10 “homes,” each dedicated to one of the 10 victims who never made it home on that fateful day. These homes serve as a space to remember the warmth, joy, and love of each victim’s life with a large mural designed by a local artist. Drawing material and formal inspiration from the colorful wooden row houses found throughout the neighborhoods of Buffalo, each mural is visible one after another in a curved row. This arrangement mimics the geometry of the adjacent Buffalo Bills stadium and allows the homes to hug the site’s interior, creating a central gathering space for remembrance, learning, play, and connection. This “back yard” offers a variety of outdoor seating, swings, demonstration gardens, an open play lawn, and splash pad organized around an amenity building that includes a cafe, gallery spaces, and auditorium, among other community programs.