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Aaron Whelton, adjunct architecture faculty, has created the winning design for a new Portland Fallen Firefighters Memorial. Commissioners Randy Leonard and Nick Fish and firefighter Paul Corah selected his design out of seven contributed by PSU adjunct faculty. It will be built at the east end of the Hawthorne Bridge along the Eastbank Esplanade.

Portland Fire & Rescue contacted architecture professor Jeff Schnable this past summer with the idea of an architecture design competition for its proposed new memorial. Schnable, who was once adjunct faculty in the Architecture Department, thought it would be appropriate to make it a contest among the talented adjunct faculty: practicing architects who teach one or two design studio courses a term.

Whelton's design is an arrangement of memorial lanterns and benches in a series of parallel lines that define areas to congregate and reflect. The light levels of the lanterns will vary monthly to represent the number of historical line-of-duty deaths during that month.

"Perhaps most powerful is the fact that when firefighters and the public gather at the new memorial site for ceremonies, we will be standing among the fallen where lanterns collectively symbolize the 36 who perished," said Corah.