Excerpt: ET-302 Memorial by Alebel Desta Consulting Architects and Engineers is conceived as a landscape of remembrance, healing, and reflection, honoring the 157 lives lost. Rooted in the principles of absence, revelation, and healing, the memorial’s design guides visitors through pathways connecting the crash site, burial grounds, and contemplative spaces while blending the monument and landscape seamlessly with the surrounding farmland.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] The ET-302 Memorial Park stands as a powerful tribute to the 157 lives lost, honoring individuals from around the world. Its design thoughtfully narrates the final moments of the flight, guiding visitors through pathways that connect the crash site, burial grounds, and spaces for reflection, healing, and remembrance blending with the surrounding farmland.
The design rests on three guiding principles: absence (reflecting loss), revelation (uncovering the crash story), and healing (providing solace). Central to the memorial are the crash site and the burial ground, both treated with solemn care.
A primary pathway from the southwest entrance recounts the flight’s last six minutes and forty-four seconds, drawing visitors step by step toward a striking monument of four inclined, earth-red concrete structures that symbolically mark the final moments and honor the lives lost. A secondary path from the northwest offers a more contemplative approach to the monument, while additional routes lead to the amphitheatre, gathering space, and rock garden.
At the heart of the memorial stands the main monument, marking the exact crash location. Four sculptural forms each representing Africa, Europe, North America, and Asia in descending height rise from the earth with textures inspired by Ethiopia’s rock-hewn architecture and the Rift Valley. Beneath these rough surfaces, plaques in the size of a Boeing 737 MAX window list victim details by continent, while small cubicles invite private contemplation.
The monument seamlessly incorporates the filled-in crash crater into the landscape, with green roofs merging the structures into the environment. An auditory feature allows visitor voices to echo, symbolizing the monument’s engagement with collective memory, while four radiating pathways extend its narrative.
The amphitheatre, situated between the Asian and African monuments, offers six concentric, stepped seating platforms with graceful, accessible pathways. Accommodating over 360 people, its centered circular platform is designed for speeches, performances, and memorial ceremonies, fostering community connection and remembrance.
The overall landscape design of the memorial reflects the ripple of the crash. With green lawns, forested areas, planted clusters, stone elements, and open paved spaces, the design echoes local agricultural textures. Green roofs on the monument and facility buildings blend with the site, while indigenous trees and about 120,000 diverse plants provide ecological value and visual continuity, ensuring the park remains a unified and reflective tribute to loss, resilience, and hope.
Following its inauguration, the project was extensively documented in a 465-page publication by Alebel Desta Consulting Architects and Engineers, published by Shama Books.
The memorial has since gained wide international recognition, being featured on major platforms such as ArchDaily, Architizer, Designboom, Dezeen, and C3 Globe, as well as in leading Ethiopian publications. In November 2025, the ET-302 Memorial received the Architizer A+Awards in Paris under the Religious Buildings & Memorials category, further underscoring its global architectural and cultural significance. In February 2026, it was also honored with the ArchDaily Building of the Year Award in the Best Applied Product category.
Drawings
Images
