The winner of the World Trade Center memorial design competition was Michael Arad in collaboration with Peter Walker. Surely it was their design content that won them the commission, but their choice of media certainly contributed.


Their presentation is simple like the rest of the submissions, and the project description is brief. It is the renderings of the project that support it. They are very well done digital renderings of what the building will actually look like when completed. Sketches and artistic renderings work well in the portrayal of ideas, but nothing is more realistic than a 3d rendering. The programs are designed to emulate the effects of light and reflections in photography. Sometimes the results can be so incredible that it becomes difficult to tell the difference between a rendering and a photograph.

They also included a stunning animation in their proposal:

In architecture we have never had the privilege of viewing buildings exactly as they will appear before they are constructed. The digital realm has given us this exiting opportunity. Alex Munt of SCAN Magazine comments on the potential of digital architecture:

"Over the last decade, architects - like many creative professionals - have taken advantage of… 3D modeling and animation software developed for the gaming and entertainment industries. However, where most gaming environments seem to be satisfied with simulacra of ‘real’ world building stock, Digital Architects have taken up the challenge of defining a new spatial aesthetics pertinent to the Information Age... and it is here that the real and the virtual share an exciting zone of intensity.”

In the digital world, if something doesn’t look right it can be changed. The digital realm has removed uncertainty from the design process.