An ISU alumnus is part of a team selected to help redesign the destroyed site where the World Trade Center once stood.

Ken Smith, a 1976 graduate in landscape architecture, is part of a collaboration of designers and architects called Team Think. The team’s design for a new site is called “The World Cultural Center” and was chosen as one of two finalists by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

“It’s amazing to be one of the few people to be working on it,” Smith said.

The design includes, at its center, two latticework towers that “in a very symbolic way restores the skyline,” he said.

A Sept. 11, 2001, interpretive museum, a performing arts center, an international conference center and an open amphitheater are all included in the design.

The challenge, Smith said, is finding “the balance between memorial and redevelopment.” He said it is important to create an environment respectful of memories that also has an optimistic feel for the future.

Making the plans to rebuild is not just a matter of square footage but rather creating a meaningful memorial, he said.”The whole event is so difficult,” Smith said.

He said the site is very complicated. The area is a major transportation center, so plans had to allow for subway, vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

The World Trade Center was walled off from the city and not very accessible in some ways, Smith said. He said there is an opportunity to make the new design even better by creating a more accessible site that pedestrians are able to walk up to.

Smith said one of the goals in designing a replacement to the World Trade Center is to “make the strongest, safest buildings that can be built.”

The new towers would have the highest platform in the world and serve 8.5 million visitors per year. The cost estimates of the center are as high as $800 million.

Smith said the rebuilding would take about 10 years. The latticework towers would be the first thing rebuilt. The towers would be built above and around the footprints of the former World Trade Center.

The World Cultural Center was chosen from three of Team Think’s designs because it had the strongest public response. The level of interest in the project is high, he said. People are e-mailing Smith ideas and stopping him on the street to discuss the design with him.

Team Think is composed of all New York architects and designers. Smith first got involved with the team because he works six blocks from the site of the World Trade Center and had been active in some of the events after the tragedy.

Smith said when he was an ISU landscape student he was always interested in parks and public space.

“I never would have imagined working on something like the World Trade Center, though,” he said.

Jennifer Justice, senior in art and design, said she would like to see individuals from around the world be able to participate in the memorial.

“This was an international tragedy,” she said. “It wasn’t just New York that was affected, it wasn’t just America, it was everyone.”

She said she likes that the new site would be representative of the old towers but not an exact replica.

Justice said she does not like that eight office buildings and a hotel are in the plans to surround the latticework towers. Instead, she would like to see a park surrounding the buildings.

Calvin Lewis, chairman and professor in the Department of Architecture, said he thinks having office buildings on the site is a good idea.

“It is still a living urban city,” he said. “Although the memorial aspects are certainly important, the memorial does not need to be overwhelming.”

Lewis said the latticework towers do not balance the priorities effectively. The World Trade Center towers were important and wonderful in their time, he said, but recreating the towers would no longer be effective.

Lewis said a memorial to those who lost their lives is appropriate but a “memorial to the buildings themselves is less critical.”