Project: Living Edge: Waikīkī Memorial Park
Student: Lynn Mayekawa, MLA Candidate
Course: Spring 2020 ARCH 652 Site Design Studio
Instructor: Phoebe White, ASLA

Waikīkī War Memorial Complex’s most recognizable feature is the Natatorium’s beaux arts arches. While indicative of the zeitgeist at inception, it is now an indelible characteristic of Waikīkī’s shoreline. The Natatorium as living memorial is not static but a public space the community redefines and owns. More importantly, even a deteriorated Natatorium gives life to a beloved beach: Kaimana.

This project recognizes the existing war memorial and memorial park as well as an imbued memorialization of life rooted in the ocean. Living Edge: Waikīkī Memorial Park incorporates the symbolism and impact of this saltwater pool into a new memorial: where Waikīkī relies on the constructed sea wall to maintain its shoreline, Kaimana relies on the Natatorium’s sea wall to maintain its beach. The newly designed Kahanamoku Living Memorial flows, forming a naturalistic sea wall to maintain the beach and an intertidal zone to seed corals, mollusks and bivalves that support heathier oceans. This makes way for a circular deck to mimic the fomality of the arches and return a contemplative aspect to the Natatorium.