The following slides provide an overview of the design proposals submitted by each of the five short listed design teams for the provision of a permanent memorial to the Omagh bomb of 15 August 1998 linking both the bomb site on Market Street and the

1

• The following slides provide an overview of the
  design proposals submitted by each of the five
  short listed design teams for the provision of a
  permanent memorial to the Omagh bomb of 15 August
  1998 linking both the bomb site on Market Street
  and the Memorial Garden.
• This is a significant project and the proposals
  submitted include detailed design information.
  This presentation illustrates the key design
  features of each of the five design proposals and
  we welcome your comments on any aspects of the
  proposed designs.

2

• PROPOSAL NO. 1
• Design Team-
• FAM Arquitectura y Urbanismo S L
• Madrid, Spain

3
Proposal 1 FAM Arquitectura y Urbanismo S L
BUILDING WITH WORDS The project is generated
from the main perspective that means the
challenge to connect the place where the bomb
bursted and the Memorial Garden, which is the
place where the competition basis establish for
the Memorial, considering that one of the main
targets of the proposal is to join both places,
conceptually and even physically. People will
understand both places as the same thing - a
memorial that expands itself into the city of
Omagh and remind them what happened and
where. Therefore the aim is to connect both
places in a way that the memorial could be an
installation for the city, which lays
permanently in Omagh. The proposal goes from the
bomb place to the garden and leads the citizens
to the other place, which is like the complement
or missing part of the whole project, by a visual
connection between both elements. The main
element is a canopy that connects the site bomb
and the garden. The canopy is lattice enclosures
that cover the way between both places. From both
edges the lattice is denser and the more you walk
into the mid point, the lattice becomes more
disintegrated. The canopy element changes with
the differences and characteristics of every
single place. The canopy is qualified in a
different way in Market Street, the bridge over
the river and the entrance to the memorial
garden. The qualified operations means that as
the height changes, so does the structure.
4
Proposal 1 FAM Arquitectura y Urbanismo S L
5
Proposal 1 FAM Arquitectura y Urbanismo S L
6

• PROPOSAL NO. 2
• Design Team-
• Shiels Flynn Making Marks,
• Norfolk

7
Proposal 2 Sheils Flynn Making Marks
Omagh lies within a verdant river valley
landscape of damp mists and scattered drumlins.
In the centre of Omagh, the river valley is a
constructed controlled environment with
embankments, culverts, fences and concrete. The
streets are inevitably noisy, bustling corridors
with thundering lorries, commuter radios and
delivery vans. The bomb explosion at the central
cross roads shattered Omaghs routine, ripping
the built fabric apart. 10 years on the casual
visitor would be unaware, but for a tall shard of
stone set within the pavement. It is a
beautifully textured piece of local limestone,
carved with a few words in three languages to
explain the date and time of the explosion. The
wedge shape of the shard forms an arrow pointing
towards the river bridge and the route to the new
Memorial Garden. A second carved shard stone
marker, this time made from a Donegal limestone,
stands at the entrance to the garden. The
Memorial Garden is an island separated from the
noise of Drumragh Avenue by reeds and an angular
reflective pool of water. Groups of native
woodland trees screen the car park to the north
and the landform is slightly tilted to ensure the
new memorial will often be bathed in sunshine.
8
Proposal 2 Sheils Flynn Making Marks
Memorial An oval of granite paving is sliced by
an array of radial joints which meet at a
circular water feature. This focal font is
perfectly jointed so that the stones have a
smooth texture its upper surface is carved with
a series of concentric ripples. When activated,
a water fountain at the centre bubbles water like
a natural spring. Scattered on and beyond the
oval, standing stones of Kilkenny limestone are
aligned with the radial joints of the granite
paving. The split, polished cut surfaces of many
of these stones are carved with quotations from
those who have suffered as a result of the
explosion. The tall marker stones at the bomb
site, the entrance to the Memorial Garden and at
the woodland edge beside the oval are also
outlying shards, conceived as an integral part of
this central art feature. Memorial Garden The
central memorial is separated from the road by a
reflective pool of water fringed on one side by
reeds. Visitors cross the wetland on a wide
bridge and approach the Memorial along an angular
gravel path, which is partially framed by a
curving hornbeam hedge. Gabion walls filled with
Kilkenny limestone fragments enclose one side of
the pool and a seating area to the north of the
Memorial. A wildflower meadow and 31
multi-stemmed alder and birch trees provide a
neutral backdrop to the garden.
9
Proposal 2 Sheils Flynn Making Marks
10
Proposal 2 Sheils Flynn Making Marks
11

• PROPOSAL NO. 3
• Design Team-
• Sean Hillen and Desmond Fitzgerald Architects,
• Dublin

12
Proposal 3 Sean Hillen and Desmond Fitzgerald
Architects
CONSTANT LIGHT THE LIGHT THAT SHINES ON US
ALL Light unites us all in that it makes all
life possible. The concept of Reflecting
connects to reactions and consequences of the
atrocity. A mirror in the memorial park tracks
the sun, and pours a constant beam of sunlight
onto 31 small mirrors. They are arranged to carry
the light to a heart shaped sculpture at the bomb
site, which is almost constantly in the
shade. The heart is cut-glass crystal apparently
floating inside a pillar of glass. It will
sparkle and glitter with the light. It will be a
beautiful and remarkable sight. The approach to
the art work is that it should attempt to express
simply, uninhibitedly and vividly the huge
outpouring of compassion for the victims.
13
Proposal 3 Sean Hillen and Desmond Fitzgerald
Architects
14
Proposal 3 Sean Hillen and Desmond Fitzgerald
Architects
GARDEN OF LIGHT The memorial park becomes
Garden of Light, collecting and reflecting the
sunlight, thence transmitting to the bomb
site. The design of the space also takes its cue
from the concept of REFLECTION a simple,
meditative space, not fenced off from the street
but retaining a sense of quiet enclosure by
dropping down to the reinstated original site
level along a series of gentle steps or a gently
sloping path. The design language takes its cue
from the austere classicism of the Great War
memorials and the powerful archaic quality of
grass and stone in the more ancient survivals
from medieval and celtic Ireland. Paving is of
bright granite flag stones set out so that grass
and fragrant herbs such as thyme and camomile
will grow through the joints. Planting is simple
the much loved silver birch (a pioneer species
always the first to grow in disturbed land) and
grassy banks which will include swathes of
bluebells in spring and poppies in the
summer. The grassed areas will include areas
maintained as lawn for walking and lying down as
well as flowering areas where the grass will be
cut less frequently. Maintenance regimes are
undemanding mostly a matter of establishing and
mowing lawn and meadow. A strip at the north
boundary of the site is left to make a home for
birds and wildlife. Contour lines, patterns in
the grass, planting layouts, paving patterns and
circulation focus in a gentle spiral to a
reflecting pool which is the centre of the
scheme.
15
Proposal 3 Sean Hillen and Desmond Fitzgerald
Architects
16
Proposal 3 Sean Hillen and Desmond Fitzgerald
Architects
17
Proposal 3 Sean Hillen and Desmond Fitzgerald
Architects
18

• PROPOSAL NO. 4
• Design Team-
• Robinson Patterson Partnership,
• Belfast

19
Proposal 4 Robinson Patterson Partnership
Our initial response to the tragic events that
happened in Omagh on 15th August 1998 is of
cause and effect. We aim to link that site of
the bomb with the garden location by referring to
the shock waves radiating tragically for the
families and communities from the terrible spot
in Market Street in Omagh, and touching the lives
of many as the news spread in a ripple effect
across the world. The bomb blast in its intensity
and brevity radiates still through time as the
losses it brings have left holes in the fabric of
lives and communities. Therefore it is this
sense of tragic energy radiating from the spot in
Omagh that we picked up on and which we see as
the conceptual core of our collaborative design
framework. It is our intention that the centre of
the blast be marked with a stone sculpture of one
and a half meters in diameter. This stone will be
created with radiating undulations on its surface
emitting from the central point on the upper
surface of the stone. Directly underneath this
central point will be housed a bronze bell, which
during installation will be entombed inside the
stone. We propose that the names of the victims
and the time and date be etched on the bell.
20
Proposal 4 Robinson Patterson Partnership
21
Proposal 4 Robinson Patterson Partnership
22
Proposal 4 Robinson Patterson Partnership
23
Proposal 4 Robinson Patterson Partnership
24

• PROPOSAL NO. 5
• Design Team-
• Peter Hutchinson
• Belfast
• (in association with BS Design Consultants
  David Gould Associates RPS Group Bob Sloan
  Eleanor Wheeler Michael Longley)

25
Proposal 5 Peter Hutchinson
The proposal at the car bomb site is to provide
an underground/subsurface/subterrain or chamber
where a memory bank can be created idea of
preserving a collective memory represented
through individual vessels. The cast bronze
cover to the memory trunk would have the time and
date of the car bomb explosion - added to it
would be a circle or O an abbreviation or
reference to Omagh. The viewer is directly facing
the temporary and permanent memorials whilst
either reading about the event/memorial on a lit
stainless steel information panel or looking
into/reading the memory trunk. The memory trunk
cast bronze cover, set under glass, can only be
viewed at an oblique angle. It can be lit with
the light controlled by a sensor and powered by
solar energy. A seat or bench is provided to
separate the space from the public footpath,
allow visitors to sit and contemplate the event.
Space for disabled access is also provided.
26
Proposal 5 Peter Hutchinson
Permanent Garden Site The 3m high gabion wall
along the riverside boundary will be transparent
buttress gabion piers placed at right-angles to
the side boundary are linked together by mesh
panels 60 void and 40 solid allowing a view
of the garden to and from the riverside walkway.
The central space is paved with textured and
smooth granite strips with the irregular junction
between it and the outer boundary gabion walls
taken up by boulders and gravel. The paving
extends to the benches set parallel to the
gardens perimeter, which will provide full
uninterrupted access. The central permanent
sculpture feature is a disc missing in the
centre. This is a reference to the memory trunk
buried at the car bomb site and the O is for
Omagh. Two marks on its face show the time of
the bomb explosion 3.10pm. The piece is set in
a shallow pool. Water flows from the top over
the piece and the polished granite of the pool
base is engraved with the word Omagh. The water
shimmers and ripples and reflects as it passes
over the towns name, synonymous now with the car
bomb atrocity. At the lower entrance to the
garden a waterproof steel box or safe with a door
is built into the gabion wall. This space is
used to house 2 books, one that tells the story
of the garden design, the other to allow visitors
to note their personal thoughts and
feelings. Outside the enclosed and walled garden
the space to the riverside walkway wall and to
Drumragh Avenue footpath has been retained as
grass the ground has been sculpted with topsoil
and planted with clumps of silver birch 31 in
total. Internally the garden will feel peaceful
and calm, outside the opposite is true, with the
grass and trees swaying and moving with changing
weather conditions. There will be word walls
placed inside the garden with poetry and other
appropriate written statements.
27
Proposal 5 Peter Hutchinson
28
Proposal 5 Peter Hutchinson
29
Proposal 5 Peter Hutchinson
30
Proposal 5 Peter Hutchinson