onePULSE Design Presentation

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onePULSE Foundation held three public presentations to give a detailed look at and solicit feedback on preliminary designs for the National Pulse Memorial, the Museum and Education Center, and the Orlando Health Survivors Walk. The first of the meetings was held at the Orlando Repertory Theatre (1001 East Princeton Street Orlando FL).

Following the presentation, representatives from the design team and onePULSE Foundation will answer questions from the audience. Attendees were also invited to submit written feedback on comment cards available at the meeting.

In October 2019, onePULSE Foundation selected Coldefy and Associés with RDAI, Orlando-based HHCP Architects, Xavier Veilhan, dUCKS scéno, Agence TER, and Prof. Laila Farah to design the National Pulse Memorial and Museum. Since October, the design team has been working closely with the onePULSE Foundation to develop a project timeline and master plan that will ensure design and construction is coordinated with other public improvements already planned by the city.

The concept design from Coldefy with RDAI | HHCP features water, greenery, and a reflecting
pool encircling the Pulse building. In memory of the 49 victims, a palette of 49 colors
lines the basin and radiates towards a peaceful garden planted with 49
trees. The design also envisions a spiraling, open-air museum and
educational center with vertical gardens, public plazas, and a rooftop
promenade. The museum was designed with a flower like an Easter Lilly in mind but it tends to look like a nuclear power plant cooling tower with an undulating upper rim.

Thomas Coldefy stood at the podium as I sketched. He traded off with associates Julia Capp, Zoltan Neville, and Michael Chatham, as they each outlined various phases of the design,  The club itself will be transected by a walkway with granite walls allowing people who want to walk through the space, the option to do that. The removed section will become a part of the Pulse Museum and the club itself will remain empty for no but renovated and air conditioned with no views inside. Musical vibrations are to be present in the walk through when you tough the granite walls. The project is slated to cost almost $49 million dollars and construction could begin within a year.

Pulse Temporary Memorial Dedication

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The interim memorial design was created by the team of by Kody Smith, Christina Hite, and Greg Bryla, of the landscape architecture firm of Dix.Hite + Partners, and David Stone of Phil Kean Design, all of who worked closely with onePULSE Foundation’s memorial task force. Pam Schwartz of the Orange County Regional History Center worked on supplying the hundreds of photos from the history museum’s collection used on a winding wall that surrounds the club. Many of local photographer J.D. Casto‘s photos cover the wall. He was at the GLBT Center on the morning following the shooting and his photos document the outpouring of love and support that followed this horrible tragedy.

The scene was already crowded when I arrived at the club. Families of victims and survivors were seated. Since I had my own artist stool, I set up in front of one of the new trees on site and started to sketch. I focused on Christina Hite while she spoke at the podium. Greg Bryla is a dedicated Urban Sketcher, so I was pleased to know he had a hand in helping design this temporary memorial. An unexpected aspect of the temporary memorial is that there is a window in the surrounding wall allowing visitors to see the spot where the club was breached by the swat team so that the hostages held in the bathrooms could escape. Bullet holes litter the brickwork around the blast hole. This is where the terrorist was finally killed.

The architect firm of Coldefy and Associés has recently won the deign competition to create a permanent memorial at this site. Their design surrounds the Pulse Nightclub building with a pool and fountain that has 49 colors in concentric circles radiating from the pool’s center. The typical rainbow, (ROYGBIV) only has 7 colors. If you multiply that by 7 you get 49 colors. Another aspect of their design that I like is a circular canopy that supplies shade for anyone visiting the site. They also had elegantly incorporated a wall separating the quiet space from the sound of traffic on Orange Avenue. The most striking feature is that the club is cleaved in half, creating a canyon like space that people can walk through. 49 trees will cover the site creating a garden to celebrate life.

The Pulse Museum design looks a bit like a futuristic reactor. It has a slatted white exterior that is squeezed in the middle with an undulating
roof profile. Glimpses inside show a twisting staircase and plants,
echoing features of the memorial, and a large circular opening that
floods natural light into the space. There are large public areas where the community can gather to learn and have events. It is an exciting design that would immediately become a defining landmark of the SODO area. Green spaces radiate from the club beautifying the district. Only time will tell how much of this amazing design will become reality. The Museum and Memorial are both intended to open in 2022.

onePULSE Memorial and Museum Models

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The six architectural firms that were selected to submit Pulse Memorial and Museum designs to the onePULSE Foundation, now have their models on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL) through October 10, 2019. The six firms submitting were…

  • Coldefy and Associés with RDAI, Xavier Veilhan, dUCKS scéno, Agence TER, Prof. Laila Farah
  • Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rene Gonzalez Architects with Raymond Jungles, Inc.
  • heneghan peng architects, Gustafson Porter + Bowman, Sven Anderson & Pentagram
  • MASS Design Group, Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Sasaki, Sanford Biggers, Richard Blanco, Porsha Olayiwola
  • MVRDV, Grant Associates, GSM Project and Studio Drift
  • Studio Libeskind with Claude Cormier + Associés, Thinc, and Jenny Holzer

I will refer to the submissions just by the names in bold above for convenience.

The model in the foreground of my sketch by Studio Libeskind was one of my favorites in terms of of the design for the memorial. They propose a heart-shaped design of 366 rainbow gates, each for a day of the 2016 calendar year that creates a walking path around the club. Victims names appear on the gate that corresponds to the date of their birth. That path then cuts through the Pulse nightclub in a Z/broken heart pattern. They propose projections inside the club that are words of love and loss spoken by those impacted. This feels like a weaker aspect to the design concept.  The areas inside the heart pattern become a community space. There is a break in the heart pattern that is the entry into the club and symbolizes June 12, the day of the shooting. The theme of the design is Perpetual Light. The design then spills out onto Orange Avenue up towards Orlando Regional Medical Center with landscaping. Orlando is the most dangerous city in America for pedestrians and the present sprawl of Orange Avenue doesn’t seem a welcoming site for a peaceful “Survivors Walk.”

The museum design proposed by Studio Libeskind is a tall, boxy sculptural form that is meant to resemble a standing figure. Though the idea that it represents white light being broken up into a great diversity of colors, it just feels monstrous, like the iron giant. The museum seemed less thought out than the boxy form. It is the less inspiring half of the studio’s proposal. Each model also had a second small scale model that showed how the museum and memorial would fit into the Orlando Urban landscape. These were helpful to consider the future of the how SODO district might look.

The museum designed by Coldefy, was, on the other hand, well thought out and truly inspiring. The museum spirals upward with a central core that is dedicated to the museum. Each level had outer areas that incorporate landscaping and bright light. Vertical gardens and public plazas create new community places, and a
rooftop promenade offers views to the memorial and over the entire
district. It feels like a space station, modern and sleek with spiraling forms. Modular storage is explored in the schematics, making it clear they considered the storage of archival items. The museum also has a large community space for presentations and possible performances. This amazing museum design seems big and ambitious for small town Orlando, but it is my top pick.

In the Coldefy design the club is kept as an empty shell surrounded by a circular encompassing overhang that acts as a sun shade and protection from rain for visitors. The original Pulse fountain is maintained which feeds a large circular reflecting pool and the water cascades over the base which has the names of the 49 who lost their lives that night. The pool is lined with 49 colors that radiate towards the public spaces. A slice of the club is removed in a V shapes pattern and that section is preserved for the Pulse Museum, while the rest of the building is kept intact as an empty form, a memory of times past with a canyon walkway through it. A garden around the club is filled with 49 trees. I found it ironic that they were all orange on the model since we never experience fall here in Orlando. I noticed a wall that would break the street noise which was an intelligent design choice. Together they transform the SODO district. Once again, a top choice for me.

MVRDV had a memorial design which would allow visitors to walk under the club which has the bullet holes and damage covered in gold. Though a bold choice, it seems impractical. Water would likely pool in the new sinkhole created, and quite honestly it might best function as cover for a homeless tent city. The landscape consists of 49 trees chosen by victims’ families with atmospheric lighting.

The MVRDV museum is designed to look like LOVE written in cursive and slanted up from the ground. The sloping roof top is covered in green-space but seems impractical, since people who go up there would be surrounded by walls making the experience feel confining. Having a museum occupying the inner strokes of a cursive shape might also feel confining.

MASS Design Group surrounded the Pulse Nightclub with giant wedge shaped shards that act as a large waterfall feature. The club is contained withing the water feature, only faintly visible through the cascading water. The names of the 49 victims are at the base of the fountain feeling much like the 9/11 memorial. Though the nightclub remains, it is encapsulated and contained. The museum design is consistent with large wedge shapes thrusting towards the ground. It reminded me of the Star Wars Sandcrawler where droids go to die. It also reminded me of cheese graters and Hollywood sets with false facades. Needless to say, this was not my favorite design.

heneghan peng was the starkest of the designs for the memorial. My favorite aspect of the design is a stark wall that simply has 6.12.2012 emblazoned on it with 6 foot high carved numerals like on a gravestone. The curved linear exterior design of the museum is nice. Its curves embrace public spaces along West Kaley, tilting upwards to
provide shade. At its heart is a matrix of flexible chambers. The interior however feels dark and cavernous like a mall. This felt cold to me and not fully thought out.

Diller was my lest favorite of the designs. The memorial model appeared like a birthday cake with candles on top. The plan is to have pillars through the club which illuminate in rainbow colors. The impression is of stripper poles or ballistic tracks of bullets through a crime scene. Not only that, but the club is surrounded by similar poles. It all felt wrong and disconcerting to me.  The club is surrounded by what appears to be a beaded curtain. The museum design seemed to surf through a variety of scenarios as though they had no idea where to begin the final design. In general, they incorporated green space concepts with a series of blocks for the museum itself. Nothing seemed right.

Regardless of how I feel, you should look through the videos and design drawings and decide for yourself what you feel would work best for the memorial and museum south of downtown. If you are local, go in this week and leave your comments. If you aren’t local, visit the onePULSE Foundation website to review and leave your comments there. 

Lynching Memorial in Montgomery Alabama

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Members of the onePULSE Foundation Board flew into Montgomery, Alabama to visit the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, commonly known as the Lynching Memorial. Pam Schwartz and I flew in the same day, but on a separate flight. While the Board explored the museum, I walked over to the memorial to sketch.

Entrance to the memorial costs $5 and there are two metal detectors for security. Video isn’t allowed but still photography is fine, although they don’t want people taking selfies in front of the sensitive  statues of enslaved people. Since we were only in town for a day, I had a change of underwear in my artist stool and I hoped I wouldn’t have to drag it out while going through the metal detectors. My sketch pad should get through fine.

I was surprised when security told me that I would have to leave my art bag behind, although I was told I could take out anything I needed. I said I would need my sketchbook and then I was informed that sketching was not allowed. I would also have to leave my art stool, so I faced the prospect of standing for several hours as I sketched, which can be exhausting. I decided to turn on my heel, get my refund, and leave.

I hiked around the block until I found this view of the memorial from an abandoned empty lot across the street. About half way into this sketch another security guard walked down the steps and across the street from me. I stiffened up, thinking he might try and stop me from sketching from this public spot. The opposite happened. He apologized and said I could could sit inside on one of the granite benches if I wanted to. I thanked him for the offer but I was already deeply committed to this sketch. I also had shade from a tree on the empty lot which was needed. There were few trees inside the memorial property.

This is the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved
black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans
humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color
burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence. The memorial uses sculpture, art, and design to contextualize racial
terror. The site includes a memorial square with 800 six-foot monuments
to symbolize thousands of racial terror lynching victims in the United
States and the counties and states where this terrorism took place. These rust colored monuments hang from the ceiling. The Equal Justice Initiative is inviting counties across the country to claim their monuments and
install them in their permanent homes in the counties they represent.

The streets of Montgomery, Alabama are strangely deserted. I got the feeling like I was the last man on earth walking the quiet streets. When a car did rush by it seemed out of place. The city wears its history of hate and racism on its sleeve with pride.

onePULSE Foundation Town Hall Forum – Changing Hate…A Conversation

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The onePULSE Foundation Town Hall Forum – Changing Hate…A Conversation, was held at the Orlando Rep (1001 East Princeton Street Orlando FL). The set was for a production of Elf.

Hate crimes in our nation’s 10 largest cities increased by 12% in 2017 the highest level in more than a decade. This Town Hall Forum brought national key influencers to Orlando to discuss how they overcame a hateful belief system, are addressing hateful messages and reaching others to dispel the belief that hate is learned.

I sketched the Morgan Stanley banker who introduced the evening at the podium. Barbara Poma the Pulse night club owner and founder of the one Pulse Foundation also introduced the evening. The panel was moderated by

Sally Kohn, author of The Opposite Of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity she is also a  CNN political commentator and columnist.

Panelist

Daryl Davis, author of Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan spoke about his childhood growing up in Europe where white and black are not an issue. His family returned to America and he joined the boy scouts. His troupe was invited to walk in a parade. He gladly put on his uniform and joined his fellow scouts on the parade. However during the course of the parade several small boys and adults began to throw small rocks. He thought, “They must not like boy scouts.” It wasn’t until troupe leaders shielded him that he realized that the rocks were only meant for him. At home his parents had to patch his wounds and he asked why people had a problem with him. He had never heard of racism. He couldn’t understand how someone could hate him if they didn’t know him.

Thus began a life long mission to speak with members of the KKK who hated him. Many of these conversations resulted in friendships. Daryl collects KKK memorabilia from people he has talked to who gave up their life of hate. Over 200 Klansman have left the KKK after these conversations with Daryl.

Dylan Marron is a blogger and host of Conversations with People Who Hate Me. He experienced a rush of euphoria as his online persona took flight. However this success also resulted in hate directed towards him online. He become obsessed with finding out who these people were who hated him. He would look up their contact information on social media and call them. These recorded conversations are what he shares online now. He and Daryl bot agreed that giving someone the chance to express their opinions often resulted in them being willing to hear their opinion. Conversation is about acknowledging someones self worth. In the course of each conversation there is usually a moment when someone has a dog rush in the room, of they step on a Lego. The moment they laugh together gives him a glowing moment of hope. All the differences of opinion melt away.

Sally asked everyone in the audience to think of three issues that they hold dear, be it abortion, gun control etc. Then she asked us all how many of us had researched that issue with government reports, research, or read multiple books on the issue. No one raised a hand. This is how people who have an opposite opinion also came to their conclusions. They only read enough to justify how they feel.

At the end of the evening, Theresa Jacobs who is stepping down as Orange County’s Mayor took to the podium. With one day left in office she seemed to want to clear the slate. She spoke of her childhood fear of black people but in school she befriended a black girl who had given her a pencil. Because she sat at the lunch table with this girl, she was ostracized by white students. She mentioned a gay boy who she dated and then a black boy she performed a trapeze act with. She expressed her support for transvestites but I think she meant to say transgender. This was the wrong forum to make that slip.  It was a strange litany and I stopped believing her sincerity.

In office she is best known as the woman who did all she could to block gay marriage, saying. “marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman.” She confided that this is the issue that conflicted with her Catholic beliefs. At a wedding for her son, she realized how her family was so important to her and how the vows in any wedding mean so much for her families happiness. She broke down and cried and realized she had been wrong. Everyone should have the right to get married and share that happiness.

Though every panelist agreed that we are living in dark times and that hate speech is rampant, they choose to battle the ignorance and hate one conversation at a time. If you disagree with someone try and avoid expressing your disdain, instead stop and listen and share your thoughts. This Thanksgiving if you have a relative who supports today’s atmosphere of intolerance and hate, try talking to them and plant a seed of light in the darkness. Change doesn’t happen quickly. But some people can change.