Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Victims Honored with "Memorial in the Sky"

First Place: William Smith, Hiroshi Kaneko (US, Team 749421). Image Courtesy of matterbetter

Written by Karissa Rosenfield
Published on February 02, 2015

The winners of matterbetter’s international Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) Memorial and Park ideas competition have been announced. Attracting 293 submissions worldwide, the competition hoped to inspire a new memorial park and public space, free from the political overtone, at the Marine Establissement site in the center of Amsterdam that could be used as a place for remembrance, ceremonies, recreation, and private gatherings in honor of MH17’s victims.

MH17 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down near the Ukraine–Russia border on July 17, 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board. You can view all 10 winning proposals, after the break.

First Place: William Smith, Hiroshi Kaneko (US, Team 749421)

“The experience of mourning is a complex process. We strive therefore to create not an artifact of Architecture to be observed, but instead an evolving platform of experiences. A sunken dais, floating just below IJ’s surface, filled with a shallow layer of water, acts as mirror to the sky by calming the waters to a perfect plane. Radiating atolls of native Dutch plants will grow and provide life for migratory birds, insects, and aquatic species. Slender, tall column offer a fixed condition to juxtapose the amorphic geometry of the clouds and growth of the trees over time.

“‘Memorial in the sky’ brings us closer to the event of MH17 by means of a spatial empathy. The visitor is transported to a new spatial realm, floating between the clouds, the sun, the columns and the trees, where they may walk, sit, play, dream, and remember with those lost in the sky aboard flight MH17. Where MH17 ended with profound loss, we begin this memorial with the creation of life."

Second Place: Meaghan Hunter, Kristen Struthers, Danielle Loeb (Canada, Team 159894)