A winning design has been unveiled for the planned National Pulse Memorial & Museum in Orlando, Florida, following a competition which invited architects from around the world to submit proposals.
According to , the chosen design was put together by Coldefy & Associes, a French urban architectural firm that teamed with local Orlando HHCP Architects, and features “a spiraling, open-air museum and educational centre with vertical gardens, public plazas, and a rooftop promenade.”
The new memorial site is projected to cost $10 million and will be located several blocks from where the Pulse nightclub once stood. The original site is now surrounded by 49 trees, one for each of those who lost their lives during the massacre. Gay Cities reports that the original site will soon be encircled by a multi-coloured pool, with "a palette of 49 colors [sic]" lining its basin.
Zoltan Neville, director of design at Coldefy, said that the design process was deeply connected to the local community.
“Everything started with the response from the community and from the world to tragedy at the Pulse nightclub," he said in a statement.
“Our goal is that visitors will experience a space that both respects the memory and life of the nightclub, the victims, and all those affected. And that the project can be a catalyst for understanding and change.”
The OnePULSE Foundation hopes to begin construction on the site in 2021, with the memorial and museum projected to open in 2022.
