The events of 9/11 occupy an unorthodox place in our collective memory, existing somewhere between history and current events. As the lead media designer for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, it was our job to help tell that unfinished story.

We made a radical decision to craft an experience that transcended a singular narrative. Instead, it weaves the experiences of real people with a timeline of events. Throughout the exhibitions, we made it our mission to collect, categorize, and visualize 13 years of memories. These stories and their metadata are at the core of museum’s collaborative storytelling philosophy.

We designed the museum so that every visitor can leave a story. This makes it a museum unlike any other: one that evolves with its visitors over time.

Read the full case study with juror comments here: [http://www.aiga.org/cased-2015-winner-september-11-memorial-museum]

“I appreciate highly interactive the exhibition is. The solutions are appropriate, well-executed, and when evaluated altogether make for a memorable, immersive experience and an excellent example of the ‘people’ and ‘culture’ streams of sustainability within the Living Principles for Design framework.” —Alia Hassan