In exactly one year, on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in 2001, the World Trade Center Memorial at ground zero will open to the public. The accompanying museum building will open in 2012. The elegant design from Snohetta, winner out of 5,000 entries in the 2004 design competition, created a 16 acre plaza where two fountains represent the original locations of the twin towers.

A colleague in New York City, Socorro Alatorre, had an opportunity to tour the construction site on July 30th and sent me some of her photographs. The first shows the north pool with a square shape that represents the footprint of the north tower. Water will cascade over the edges and drop 27 feet into a pool at the bottom and then fall again through a small square opening in the bottom. From the top at plaza level, the viewer will be unable to see the bottom of the cascade so there is the impression that it falls for eternity.

In the images above, some of the edging material to the pool has already been installed. Below shows a detail of a piece yet to be installed. The grooves in the material will allow the water to cascade of the edges and flow smoothly in a sheet down the face of the wall.

Below are images of the granite cladding on the walls of the main pools although I’m unsure of the specific type of granite. She said it looked black with a hint of green. The images also provide a good idea of the scale.

Below is an image of part of the mechical room with some of the pumps for the north pool only. The mechinal room / pumps are located all around the water features except for on the south pool one side of it is shared with the subway/path terminal so the layout of the pumps are a bit different for the south pool.

The image below shows the subway/path terminal, or at least the rails with the precast beams being constructed.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 9 years alread and that in only one year the memorial will be complete and open to the public. It will be an amazingly stunning site that will likely leave few with a dry eye.

construction images via Socorro Alatorra, renderings via Snohetta

Since 1986 a large strip of land was left with only the bones of what was to be the Lima, Peru’s railway for an electric train. The space remained unchanged, a ghostly construction site for the train that never happened, until the Spanish collective Basurama came up with a way to turn the abondoned concrete collumns and once forgotten urban space into an amenity for the people. And then earlier this year, the Ghost Train Amusement Park was born.

Basurama, from the word basura meaning trash, has been working with trash for over a decade throughout Latin America and describes themselves as “a forum for discussion and reflection on trash, waste and reuse in all its formats and possible meanings. Our aim is to study those phenomena inherent in the massive production of real and virtual trash in the consumer society, providing points of view on the subject that might generate new thoughts and attitudes. We find gaps in these processes of production and consume that not only raise questions about the way we manage our resources but also about the way we think, we work, we perceive reality.”

The bright and colorful park features recycled tires transformed into multi-person swinging contraptions and climbing structures along with lines of swings and a canopy line for kids to zip along from the unfinished structure through the color-wrapped concrete collumns.

images via basurama

As fall sets in, so does the Seattle rain. It is a good time to check out the Thornton Creek Water Quality Channel, the urban park-like water quality facility designed to mimick a natural stream bed and riparian zone would handle the varying levels of water flowing through the system. Nate Cormier of SvR Design snapped some great photos in late September and early October. Looks like it’s performing as planned and looking quite lush.

images via Nate Cormier