In some memorials like Pearl Harbor or the Korean War, the names of the fallen are usually listed alphabetically. The 9/11 Memorial is the first to list names based on the bonds between victims – all thanks to an algorithm.
When the National September 11 Memorial opens this fall, on the tenth anniversary of that world-changing day, names will be inscribed next to each other on the granite wall surrounding the Memorial Garden’s fountains.
The names’ careful placement and area of location is a product of masterful programming undertaken by the New York media design firm Local Projects, which took 1,800 requests from families of the 3,500 9/11 victims, and created an algorithm that let them be grouped by association. This means firefighters with firefighters, cops with cops, all the members of each of the flights, first responders, or just pals.
Co-incidentally, after the announcement of Bin Laden’s death, President Obama will have made his way to Manhattan to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site. The 9/11 Memorial President, Joe Daniels, unveiled the web site that displays the final arrangement. Names.911memorial.org provides wayfinding for each of the victims. It also provides brief biographical information provided by next-of-kin. The same application will be available on mobile smartphones, tablet computers, and electronic kiosks when the plaza of the Memorial opens on Sept. 11, 2011.
“It’s the connections in our lives that matter the most. These names, inscribed in bronze, are the heart of the experience.” - 9/11 Memorial President, Joe Daniels
Conventional memorial design dictates that names are listed alphabetically or chronologically. That makes people easy to find, but tends to dilute the meaning that attaches to affinity. With this new program, bands of brothers, families, and co-workers, can be remembered as part of a group that meant the world to them in life and united them in death.
“It’s about making meaning not just for the people who know the individuals, but for the people who are going there,” says Jake Barton, Local Projects’ founder. “In that way, people can learn the human relationships and stories underneath the names themselves.” If, for example, you see the 650 employees from Cantor Fitzgerald together, you realize that an entire company was nearly wiped out. Had they been arranged alphabetically, that bit of meaning would have been lost.
“The Memorial Finder, covers the gap,” says Barton. “It tells you the specific panel and number, where you can find an individual, but begins to reveal the connections between the names themselves. As you move around the site itself, a smartphone app will reveal adjacencies as well as the stories behind the names.” While the project makes intuitive sense, wrangling 3,500 victims’ names was anything but simple.
“A couple months after the project was completed, we heard that two computer scientists who had seen the original RFP rejected it, saying it couldn’t be done,” Barton says. The wizard behind the algorithm is Jer Thorp, a freelance programmer who worked with LocalProjects on the challenge (and also the same person who created The New York Times‘s superb 3-D Twitter tracker.)
Via »Source
