The location I chose for the Slavery memorial is located at the base of the Washington monument on the National Mall. I chose this location because I view it as a representation of freedom, being that it houses monuments for two of America’s greatest liberators Lincoln and Washington. The mall is also home to the Capitol building, which I view as a representation for the process towards freedom. Another reason I chose this location is due to the proximity of the future museum for African American History and Culture. The site for the museum is adjacent to the north of the site I chose for the memorial. Due to the relevance of the memorial to the museum and vice versa, I wanted to make a more defined connection between the two structures. The idea for the memorial is to represent the journey of slaves from oppression to freedom. In order to capture the essence of oppression I made the majority of the memorial subterranean, verses the essence of freedom, which exists above ground in the presence of those great liberators. The memorial itself begins in the subterranean level of the museum on the adjacent site. A ramp leads down from the museum to the base of the site for the memorial, and as it moves down the sidewalls gradually close in to heighten the sense of oppression. From the base of the site a series of ramps inscribed in a square lead up to the surface and freedom. The ramps are different lengths, which get progressively longer the closer you get to the surface. The ramps are confined in a sort of corridor, which is enclosed on three sides. The inner walls of the corridors are transparent so that lines of sight are created between the ramps themselves. This allows for reflection on the how far they have already come, as well as giving them insight to where the end of the tunnel might be. In order to heighten the sense of oppression on the individual ramps I used a system of compression and release. As the visitor moves along the ramp the ceiling appears to close in due to its constant height and the increase in height of the ramp. Once the visitor reaches the end of one ramp and encounters another the ceiling height jumps back up. I chose this method to allow for some repose in the feeling of oppression. The combination of different sized ramps and circling motion they form create a level of disorientation for the visitor that slaves on the path to freedom would probably experience. The ramps closest to the surface that actually interact with the ground plane are treated differently. Once the ramp breaks the surface of the ground all sides become transparent to allow the visitors to reorient themselves and have that initial feeling of escaping, however the fact that they are still enclosed infers that the journey is not over. As the last ramp brings the visitors to the surface the sidewalls and roof are disintegrated and it releases the visitors into the openness of the mall in the heart of freedom. The space the ramps circumscribe is left void and is visible from the surface through a transparent ground. This feature allows for a similar reflective experienced found inside the memorial. The transparent ground allows the visitors to reflect on the path they just travelled as well as the path traveled by those actually seeking their freedom.