Sandy Hook Memorial: The Clearing

Honor Award

General Design

Newtown, Connecticut, United States
SWA Group
Client: Town of Newtown, CT

“

This beautiful simple project is nicely integrated in the natural landscape with plantings and materials and designed with a tremendous amount of sensitivity to the families, users, and site.

”

- 2024 Awards Jury

Project Credits

Ben Waldo, ASLA, Associate Principal, San Francisco

Daniel Affleck, Associate Principal, San Francisco (former team member)

Downes Construction Co., Construction Manager / GC

JMC, LLC, Civil Engineer

Artemis Landscape Architects, Final Planting Design

Fluidity Design Consultants, Inc., Water Feature Engineering

Atelier Ten, Lighting Design

Centek Engineering, MEP

GNCB Engineers, Structural / Geotechnical Engineering

Project Statement

On December 14, 2012, 20 children and six educators were tragically slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Over the following decade, community members came together to create The Clearing, a nature-centric memorial funded by the town. Unique among contemporary memorials, its centerpiece is a young sycamore rather than a formal object—a gesture toward remembrance and healing after unimaginable trauma—situated in a granite basin with water flowing inward and surrounded by concentric paths outlining the nonlinear process of grief. With a humble budget, designers worked closely with residents and families to develop the vision, carefully woven into an existing meadow clearing surrounded by woodland, just down the road from the rebuilt school.

Project Narrative

In a five-acre clearing near the rebuilt Sandy Hook Elementary School, you can hear the sound of children at recess blend with birdsong from the surrounding dogwoods and maples. Donated to the town by a local athletic club, the site is now home to a permanent memorial honoring the 20 children and six educators tragically slain by a lone gunman at the school in 2012—the deadliest mass shooting at a K-6 school in American history and a profound trauma for Newtown families over a decade later.

The following year, the town formed a volunteer commission of a dozen residents to conceive of a permanent memorial. Out of 189 submissions, the design team was selected with overwhelming support from the victims’ families, reflecting their wish for gardens, serenity, and solemnity. To protect the privacy and priorities of victims’ families, implementation was funded locally on a public works budget. 

Known as The Clearing, the design takes a distinctly different approach from most contemporary memorials, focusing on nature rather than a static object. At its center, a young sycamore tree is situated within a low granite basin, its beveled edge engraved with the names of the deceased—a direct reference to life cycles as a parallel to grief, seasonally shedding and regrowing foliage. Barely perceptible until visitors approach, water flows counterclockwise toward the center of the fountain, moving in the opposite direction of the surrounding series of concentric paths, a gesture toward the nonlinear process of healing. In summer, the landscape bursts forth from sculpted mounds delineating the paths, selected for pollinator value and year-round texture and color: butterfly bushes, joe-pye weed, winterberries, rudbeckias, and more.

Closely developed alongside the commission and the childrens’ parents, the memorial is carefully woven into an existing clearing without damaging intact forest, planted almost entirely with native perennials sourced from rural Connecticut, built from local materials, and repurposing existing field stones throughout. Set at a topographic low point and enveloped in eastern hardwood forest, the site—a decommissioned Little League baseball field—was donated by a local athletic club and selected over more traditional civic settings for its privacy and meditative quality. Visible from the paths, two ponds located on the site were restored from a eutrophic state to attract wildlife and improve water quality.

Signage is minimal, keeping visitors’ attention on the changing state of plantings, the water’s slow motion, the chirp and flutter of birds and insects, and a state of deep contemplation. In years to come, the sycamore will grow, its leaves broadening, shading the surrounding cobblestones. Walking along paths drawn in oblong, irregular lines, visitors move at their own pace and arrive at a collective center, honoring the roles of individuality and community in the process of grieving and remembrance.

Products

  • Furniture
    • Streetlife
  • Other
    • Polycor (stone supplier)

Plant List

  • White Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida ‘Cherokee Princess’)
  • London Plane Tree (Platanus x acerifolia ‘Bloodgood’)
  • Red Sunset Red Maple (Acer rubrum ‘Franksred’)
  • October Glory Red Maple (Acer rubrum ‘October Glory’)
  • Green Giant Western Arborvitae (Thuja ‘Green Giant’)
  • Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis ‘Autumn Brilliance’)
  • Bottlebrush Buckeye (Aesculus parviflora)
  • Black Knight Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii 'Black Knight')
  • Sixteen Candles Summersweet (Clethra alnifolia ‘Sixteen Candles’)
  • Winterberry (Ilex verticillate ‘Berry Heavy Gold’)
  • Henry's Garnet Sweetspire (Itea virginica ‘Henry’s Garnet’)
  • Gro-Low Fragrant Sumac (Rhus aromatica ‘Gro Low’)
  • Blue Fortune Hyssop (Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’)
  • Plume Flower, Vision in White Astilbe (Astilbe chinensis ‘Vision in White’)
  • Goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus)
  • Blue Milkweed, Hubricht's Bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii ‘Blue Star’)
  • Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
  • Twilight Big Leaf Aster (Aster macrophyllus ‘Twilight’)
  • Globe Thistle (Echinops bannaticus ‘Taplow Blue’)
  • Baby Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium dubium ‘Baby Joe’)
  • Gateway Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum ‘Gateway’)
  • Magnus Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’)
  • White Swan Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea ‘White Swan’)
  • Big Blue Lilyturf (Liriope muscari 'Big Blue')
  • Gayfeather (Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’)
  • Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)
  • Snow White Beebalm (Monarda ‘Snow White’)
  • Goldsturm Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida sullivantii ‘Goldsturm’)
  • Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’)
  • Hayscented Fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula)
  • Overdam Feather Reed Grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Overdam’)
  • Hubricht’s Bluestar (Asmonia hubrichtii ‘Blue Star’)
  • Showy Northeast Native Wildflower Mix: Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) Lanceleaf Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata) Blackeyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) Oxeye Sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides) Tall White Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea) Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) Roundhead Lespedeza (Lespedeza capitate) Aromatic Aster (Aster oblongifolius) Blue False Indigo (Baptisia australis) Wild Senna (Senna hebecarpa) Marsh Blazing Star (Liatris spicata) Browneyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba) Smooth Blue Aster (Aster laevis) Slender Lespedeza (Lespedeza virginica) Hoary Mountainmint (Pycnanthemum incanum) Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) Maryland Senna (Senna marilandica) White Goldenrod (Solidago bicolor) Gray Goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis) Heath Aster (Aster pilosus) Hairy Beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus) Ohio Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) Early Goldenrod (Solidago juncea)