The project for a World Knowledge Center (WKC) with the Memorial Library Lower Manhattan (MLLM) is sited at Ground Zero, where the tragic events of September 11th 2001 marked a turning point in the history of Western society. The ensemble consists of a solid urban block with its own inner world, the 'big memorial void'. This inner world registers the tug-of-war between the restored grid at street level and the negative of the footprints of the Twin Towers at rooftop level. The grid symbolizes control and rationality, the inverted towers fear, chaos and emotion. The MLLM is geared to confrontation. With the streets of Manhattan running beneath the building, the memorial void becomes an urban court within the WKC. The MLLM is all about the excitement of discovering the unknown, with an increase in knowledge accompanied by a sense of fear. The confrontation and exchange between these two brings conflict. It is a conflict between feeling and knowing, between emotion and reason, expressed by the big memorial void. This perception of control and certainty versus fear and uncertainty underscores my final-year project. SaArch, short for Saf/ve Architecture, is an enlightening study (SeArch) into the meaning of architecture. Reflection and the exchange of knowledge between cultures are unquestionably the keys to the doors to a better future.

'Surely we can risk making a space where we can ponder where we are, and perhaps who we are; a space for narratives about danger, modernity, humanity, a space of safety but also where we run the risk of rediscovering our humanity.'
Aaron Betsky in 'RAM', VPRO telecast, March 2nd 2003

'Architecture unlike other art forms, allows us to not only express the transcendence of our hopes and the prison of our fears - but also to live in them. That is to say, we build our shelters of mirrors as well as mortar.'
Kevin Sites, 'Mirrors', in Nan Ellin (ed.), Architecture of Fear, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997.

Place of education: Amsterdam Academy of Architecture
Specialization: architecture
Tutors: Yushi Uehara, Rob Hootsmans, Lars Zwart