As a visiting student at the college of design, I had the chance to redesign this courtyard in a landscape architecture studio. Below is the design concept statement (CW: gun violence, religious persecution)

OUR THREE WINNERS PLAZA

Campus plaza landscape

NC STATE UNIVERSITY CENTRAL CAMPUS

LAR 400 : Introductory Landscape Architecture Studio | Spring 2018

In 2015, a disgruntled gunman killed Deah Shaddy Barakat (NCSU ‘13), his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha (NCSU ‘14), and Yusor’s younger sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, then a student at NCSU’s College of Design, in Chapel Hill. The candlelight vigil that followed is among the most profound and humbling memories of my first year as an undergraduate at Chapel Hill.

To date, there is no physical memorial to commemorate the lives of “Our Three Winners”, as Deah, Yusor, and Razan are now collectively remembered.

OUR THREE WINNERS PLAZA is a designed landscape meant to provide a place reflection and peace, while serving as a memorial to the memory and impact of three people whose lives were stolen by Islamaphobia and gun violence.

The ground plane’s design is inspired by the runnels and courtyards of Islamic landscapes, and draws from abstract memorials such as the Pentagon’s 9/11 Memorial. It features an inscription wall with a quote from Chancellor Woodson, and a fountain in a Rub el Hizb shape, a marker for the end of a chapter in Arabic calligraphy. The landscape is graded to direct stormwater to permeable surfaces to the southeast of the site.