Workers Memorial

Champaign County Workers Memorial

Dodds Park, Champaign, Illinois

A Champaign County labor organization requested a pro bono study for a monument to county workers who suffered work-related deaths. The project is located adjacent to the Tribute to Olympic Athletes in Dodd’s Park, completed five years earlier.

The memorial sequence begins with a flag framed gateway from the parking area. Visitors walk a winding path of brick pavers through a grove of ornamental trees dedicated to each worker. The path abruptly stops at the center-point of a low constructed reflection space burrowed into the site. The end of the path contains a line of black granite that symbolizes the suddenness of the workers’ deaths. Their names are recorded on brick pavers beyond this line. The space of the path then transforms into flowers and ornamental groundcover, a constructed pond and fountain, and finally a grove of existing river birch trees.

At night a concealed light source within each sidewall projects light onto the area dividing path and flowers, illuminating the names of the dead.