poetically, the project creates a parallel between the history of the community (lenape land dispossession) and the physical construction that happened on top of the stolen land. the construction by the colonizers, like a block of concrete dropped on a site full of history in an attempt to erase its presence. the project recreates this literally and marks the inability to erase history as an everlasting impression of the local lenape architecture (wigwams and longhouses) on the interior of the concrete mass. this memorial for the lenape lies above the datum line of the ground, while the utility needed for the current native american communities in princeton lies below the datum, always looking up at their ancestors and the nature, a park and outdoor library that surrounds the external concrete blocks. this datum line is intended to create a clear separation between the two, to allow space for both types of activities (spiritual and utilitarian) to exist without interrupting one another. the project utilizes the ground line as a datum to dictate a duality between use, represented by the carving out of mass, and monument, represented by the impression of mass. this duality is further represented by the materiality (wood in use, concrete in monument, tapping into the commonality of wood vs the dramatization of stone), as well as the physical ability to access only the exterior of the monumental that stands above the datum, and the interior of the utilitarian below the datum, accentuating the inward nature of the carvings below this datum, and outward nature of them above it. the project aims to create both a utility level that caters to the working needs (auditorium, offices, library, and workshops) and spiritual ambitions (sweat lodge, lounge) of the organization, as well as a monumental space that pays ohmage to the history of its predecessors.