Unfinished Play: A Memorial for Ela

This project, Unfinished Play, was created as a design competition entry honoring Ela, a child who lost her life to an act of domestic violence. The sculpture holds space for the complexity of grief - its incompleteness, its contradictions, and its ever-changing weight. Formed through the language of play, the work takes shape as a set of weathered building blocks, scuffed and faded over time, representing both innocence and loss. The design invites interaction: the blocks are not meant to remain fixed but to be rearranged and expanded upon, reflecting the way grief shifts and the possibility of rebuilding alongside community.

Rather than memorializing through permanence, this piece embraces transformation. It carries the heaviness of tragedy while creating room for beauty, love, and shared healing. This work is part of my broader exploration into trauma-informed design, where art and landscape architecture intersect to confront systemic violence and imagine pathways toward resilience and collective care.

Tools Used: Wood, sculpture, rendering, Lumion, SketchUp
Services: Trauma-Informed Design · Visual Storytelling · Sculptural Exploration · Rendering
Tags: Domestic Violence Awareness · Memorial Design · Grief and Healing · Trauma-Informed Design · Interactive Sculpture · Play as Healing · Community Healing · Visual Storytelling · Landscape Architecture · Social Justice in Design · Emotional Landscapes

Anger

Fire Pink

Silene virginica

Shock

Butterfly Weed

Asclepias tuberosa

Gratitude

Tickseed

Coreopsis

Sorrow

Sky Blue Lupine

Lupinus diffusus

Fear

Blazing Star

Liatris spp

Love

Pale Meadow Beauty

Rhexia mariana

White Wild Indigo

Baptisia alba

Seeds of local flowers are offered for visitors to plant, each representing a different emotion carried through grief - sorrow, love, resilience, and hope - allowing the landscape itself to grow as a living expression of healing.

Peace