Photo © Robert Benson Photography, courtesy Svigal + Partners.

The design includes the Magnitude Walkway footpath, which crosses the length of the garden and includes pavers engraved with the names and ages of all 650 lives lost to gun violence in New Haven since 1976. However, the central feature is Lost Generation, an aluminum sculpture, designed by Mead, of a family’s silhouette’s that is meant to remind the viewer of “fragility and strength inherent in the family unit” and is “symbolic of the future lineages lost when a life is taken by gun violence,” she said. The garden’s pathways culminate in a circular plaza bounded by crescent-shaped stone walls containing 18 tiles engraved with loved ones’ memories of those lost. A single European Beech tree is planted in the middle as a symbol of life, and surrounded by benches for solitude and reflection. 

The project was funded and supported through a combination of state funds, city in-kind donations, private donors, volunteer contributions, and the Yale University-based Urban Resources Initiative non-profit.  

In addition to this memorial, Svigals + Partners has also designed Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2016, following the mass shooting on Decem­ber 14, 2012, that took the lives of 20 children and six staff members.