Here are two views of a model that my late geometer friend, Frank Vanderveen (1933-1994), designed as paper sculpture about 10 years ago. I thought it especially appropriate for the World Trade Center's design because of the outside access to stair-stepped patios on each floor of the building. Each floor has outside access to a patio, and each patio can have a stairway to each level--eventually leading to the ground. Also, there could be parachute emergency access on the higher floors. Each major patio square, can be used as a helicopter pad.

The design is essentially a square spiral that necessitates the number of floors and number of stepped patios to spiral. The structure can be easily modified to be multiple modular units with horizontal extrusion of the the stair-stepped sides for expansion. I feel that this is a safe elegant design--worthy of commemorating the people who were affected by this great tragedy.

Submit your comments: What do you think of this proposal?