The Lighting Practice is delighted to announce that the June 5th Memorial in Philadelphia has received a High Honor Award at the AIA Westchester + Hudson Valley (AIA WHV) 2019 Design Awards. The awards program recognizes projects that have achieved design excellence and have made a positive contribution to the built environment.
The June 5th Memorial honors the six people who were killed in 2013 when a building undergoing demolition collapsed onto a Salvation Army store in Philadelphia. The park is a place of healing and commemoration while also highlighting the importance of building safety. Led by architect Scott Aker, artist Barb Fox, and the 22nd and Market Memorial Committee, The Lighting Practice donated its time and expertise to develop a lighting solution for the memorial.
Alfred Borden, FIALD, CLD, MIES, and Caitlin Bucari chose solid state lighting sources and fiber optics to give the site a reverential nighttime glow. Lighting cascades down the surrounding walls and illuminates the spiral-patterned walking path, welcoming and engaging visitors to pause and reflect. The memorial’s centerpiece, a sculpture containing three stones, glows from within. The lighting design related the colored glass in the stone monoliths – a color selected by each family for their lost loved one – to the energy of life itself. “The glass glows without any obvious source,” Borden said. “We designed a system that allows that sealed glass box to remain sealed forever, preserving the energy within. The stones and glass will last perhaps forever, as will the memory of the people who were lost.”
The Lighting Practice is honored to have contributed to this public gathering space of remembrance in the Philadelphia community.
