SPIRIT RING
“I think immortalizing that circle — it’s almost like a ghost of how year after year, different classes, different generations of Aggies, came together where Bonfire was. I think the fact that the circle immortalizes that works on so many levels. It works for everybody who was ever an Aggie, to come there and remember where they stood in their memory of what Bonfire was. At the same time, in stone, it immortalizes the lives of those who were lost the very last time.”
PORTALS
“Starting from the centerpole location, the portals look like they’re random but they’re not random. If you take a line from the center pole out through the portal, it goes back to the hometown of each of the people who were killed in the accident. We wanted to make a gesture about this idea that people come from different places but they’re all united by the Aggie spirit, and in this case, united by the tragedy that killed them.”
HISTORY WALK
“When you turn the corner, the line that takes you out there is a timeline but it’s also a compass line. That line points due north, and the reason that’s important is that, when you stand at the center pole, that helps you understand what direction you’re looking. That sets up the sense of the circle, not only as the definer of the fence that went around the bonfire, but it also sets it up as a compass rose, where you understand the directionality to the different hometowns.”
Memorial Gravel
“Using decomposed granite as the surface that you walk on was always really important to me personally because it represented the gritty texture, the mud and the dirt, and the sweat and the blood, and everything that comes with Bonfire. If you have done Cut, if you have done Build, you know that it’s a messy, intense endeavor … the fact that whenever you’re out there you feel the texture of the ground.”
CENTERPOLE
“I love the fact that people still leave stuff on the center pole. I was there about eight months ago … It wasn’t even close to the memorial date, and people still leave little things, a token of affection, roses or whatever. That’s always touched me, that it calls people enough to still consider the loss and to have a place to think about it.”