Water, symbol of life, serves as a solemn centerpiece to a memorial honoring the twenty first-graders and six educators who were killed by a lone gunman at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012. The new memorial park, located in close proximity to the now-removed school, results from a design competition won by Daniel Affleck and Ben Waldo of SWA. Their concept called for a solitary tree to be planted in an island framed by a circular pool. Water spins around the tree. Visitors are invited to place floating votives in the pool. The votives are carried by the flows to the island, where they linger, then after a time, the votives return to the visitors who wait at the perimeter of the pool alongside inscriptions of the names of the victims.