Core77 - Blog • Feb. 3, 2026, 1:45 p.m.

The Hart Island Tumulus is a speculative architectural project that imagines a rammed-earth block structure serving as both a burial mound and a memorial for those who died during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. The proposal considers an architecture that is exposed and vulnerable to natural processes, allowing erosion, aging, and transformation to become part of its meaning.

Rather than resisting time, the memorial incorporates change as a way of sustaining remembrance. Located on Hart Island, it is positioned directly above a mass grave for pandemic victims, the mound acts as a physical signifier on the landscape, acknowledging the individuals laid to rest beneath it.

At the same time, it stands as a collective monument, marking the profound human loss caused by the pandemic and embedding that memory within the earth itself. View the full project here

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