HART ISLAND TUMULUS
2024-25 | A proposal for a memorial to the lives lost from Covid-19 on Hart Island, New York City.
4 PILLARS
They mimic works of nature, yet their creator is exposed through a regularized construction and unnatural simplicity, making them uniquely human. Among humanity’s primordial constructions, the tumulus and cairn have been constructed across cultures and throughout history. Assembled mounds of dirt and stone of varied size and shape, fictile formations of earth, yet not natural formations. The sheer mass and material makeup of these monuments has allowed them to weather the elements on a geologic timeline. Often created as a monument or tombs, they are not shelter, rather constructed for the sole purpose of bestowing significance of place; A uniquely human desire.
Disembarking the ferry you are met by 4 large pillars rising just beyond the shore. Within the interstitial gaps 4 distinct passages invite you to choose your route. Each path providing a unique route to traverse the structure.
At inception its edges are sharp, well defined, and familiar. The Hart Island Tumulus is a rammed earth burial mound and memorial to the lives lost in the Covid-19 Pandemic. Constructed above a mass burial plot for Covid victims, it places a marker on the earth to honor both those entombed below, and to memorialize the greater toll exacted on humanity by the virus.
A QUIET PLACE TO REST
December 2019, just weeks before ringing in the new year, SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) became the first global pandemic of the 21st century. Within months New York City had become the epicenter of the pandemic within the US. Roughly a mile long, Hart Island located near the city limits, was suddenly thrust from intentional obscurity into the spotlight. Overrun hospitals and morgues struggled to cope with the scale of illness and loss. Desperately overwhelmed ,the city turned to the city’s long-time Potters Field on Hart Island for mass burials. 150 years after the first internment on the island over 850,000 New York residents have been quietly laid to rest on here, making it one of the world’s largest mass burial sites.
HART ISLAND TUMULUS | Aerial view year 1
HART ISLAND TUMULUS | Site Plan
SOFT TO TIME
Two opposing materials principally make up the entirety of the tumulus. The primary material is rammed earth, found in 2 use cases: solid walls (interior), brick/blocks (with grout). Varied amounts of cement added to the different typologies of rammed earth create a designed hierarchy of strength and longevity. Tension builds in the weak zones where surfaces meet, influencing paths for erosion. The opposing material is a thick gauge steel plate. Subject to the elements it is prone to corrosion, but the loss of material is far slower than the rammed earth construction. These steel walls provide relative stasis when contrasted to the weaker rammed earth elements. This monument depends on honesty through materials. Laid bare, exposed and vulnerable, celebrating the flaws and limitations of their makeup. The strength of the materials used gives the illusion of stability, but change is ever present and unavoidable. The demise of the constructed form is part of the design and is encouraged through material construction.
HART ISLAND TUMULUS | Year 1 | Year 10 | Year 80
Resisting the constant pull of gravity and the inescapable erasure of its elevation from existence, all of humanity's structures are doomed to the same fate with time. The longevity of the structures we create are relative and arbitrary. Structures built to ‘withstand the tests of time’ are nothing more than words and grand visions of their spurred creators. Buildings evolve and buildings decay. The intent of the Hart Island Tumulus design is how it returns to the earth.
With the passage of time minimalist form gives way to those more commonly found in nature. As steep surfaces lose their pitch, vegetation takes root. Details are lost, but the overall mass remains. As the exterior is gradually reclaimed by, the inner memorial chamber is guarded from the elements.
HART ISLAND TUMULUS | Erosion at various stages
GATHERING
Slowly ascending from the waters edge into the interior of the memorial, your pupils dilate, consuming every bit of light as they shift from the harsh sunlit exterior to the faintly lit interior. This reset forces you to slow down, move differently, and adjust to the space. Stepping into the central memorial chamber you're met with what appears to be an endless expanse of vertically strung steel cables. Over 45,000 cables vanishing into the distance, one for every death attributed to Covid-19 in New York City fill the volume. It's overwhelming to see the scale of loss. A seemingly endless array of lives, each with their own story. Passing nearly 200 cables with each step, if this memorial represented the estimated 1.2 million lives lost in the United States in the first 3 years of the pandemic it would extend 2.7 miles. On average, in 2025 an estimated 400 people still lose their lives to covid or complications related to the virus each week.
HART ISLAND TUMULUS | Chamber
RECLAMATION
Upon exiting the pristine internal steel memorial, you are greeted by a softened terrain, its rigid form a victim of time. Eight decades have passed and the exterior of the memorial has partially transformed into a landscape. An inescapable reminder that humanity will never contain nature both at the micro and macro scale. Once the last earthen block succumbs to the elements, the resulting mound will still stand, for millennia reflecting its human origin, and permanently marking the significance of this place.
Covid-19 was a generational watershed moment. A marking of time that will forever be imprinted on those who lived through it. The Tumulus, even as an unrealized concept, can provide a place for reflection and mourning. Conceiving and developing this concept was a cathartic act, used as a personal means of expression to come to terms with this personally unresolved chapter. While life moves forward and the years continue to pass, we owe it to ourselves to pause and revisit the past; reflecting on how our lives were forever changed, and taking the time to remember the countless lives lost or forever altered by the virus.
HART ISLAND TUMULUS | Year 80
FILM
HART ISLAND TUMULUS | Year 80