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London Mayor Sadiq has announced plans to create a public park in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park to honor the victims of the coronavirus pandemic in the British capital.
The Stratford Memorial Park features a ring of 33 flower trees as its centerpiece,
which represents the impact of Covid-19 across 32 districts in the capital and the City of London.
It has also been designed by The Edible Bus Stop, Davies White and Rosetta Arts,
and will be grown in collaboration with the UK charity the National Trust.
The park will be a ‘permanent reminder’
Revealing the plans, Khan revealed that the memorial invited Londoners to reflect on the pandemic,
which has led to thousands of lives lost and changed their capital forever.
They also hoped it would commemorate the positive ways in which the citizens of the capital came together to support each other and key workers during the crisis.
Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on their city and country, and as they continue to fight the virus,
they have created a permanent living memorial to commemorate those who lost their lives.
They also praised the incredible work the workers have done and created a space for all Londoners to reflect on the experience of the pandemic.
This public flower garden has been a constant reminder of lives lost,
a tribute to every single key factor,
and a symbol of how Londoners stand together to help each other.
The project was implemented in one of the worst affected neighborhoods in London
Flowering trees have also been used as the centerpiece of the park because this year’s flowering season coincided with the start of the UK’s first national lockdown.
Eight different types of trees were used, planted together in three rings.
The largest circle contained 17 trees, while the other contained nine and seven.
Local artist Junior Phipps developed a path and public benches to surround the site,
and funding for the project was provided by Bloomberg.
The London Memorial Garden was due to be planted in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in early 2021.
While the site, which was originally built for the 2012 Summer Olympics,
has been chosen as in Newham – one of the capital’s neighborhoods hardest hit by the pandemic.
Newham is also home to the BDP-designed NHS Nightingale Hospital, which was built in April inside the ExCeL Exhibition Centre,
and the hospital is among several temporary healthcare facilities around the world built to help increase intensive care capacity during the pandemic.
The memorial park is part of a scheme to bring nature to cities
The memorial park was the first part of a broader campaign by the National Trust over the next few years to give more people in the UK access to nature.
This comes after a sharp rise in awareness of the need for nature in their lives,
spurred by the pandemic and people having to quarantine without access to the outside.
While this space flourished and became more beautiful as the trees grew and became part of its surroundings.
They wanted to work hard to make sure that together they design something suitable for the neighboring communities,
somewhere that becomes a space for contemplation as well as bringing nature and beauty to more people.
The park is the latest in a series of memorial proposals
Khan’s announcement of the memorial park is the latest in a series of proposals being developed to honor those who have lost their lives during the coronavirus pandemic.
These include nature-focused proposals by Italian architect Angelo Reina,
which envisioned the planting of 35,000 cypress trees at the San Siro stadium in Milan.
Latin American architecture firm Gómez Platero recently unveiled a design for a circular monument called World Memorial to the Pandemic,
which will take the form of a large statue installed on the water off the coast of Uruguay.
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