The design team transformed an abandoned water tower into the Memorial of Everyman, a memorial to all the ordinary people who performed heroic acts in desperate times. 

Innovation:
While discussing the background of the project, a touching anecdote about plugging leaks with one's body caught the designer’s attention. During a historical project of "reclaiming land from the sea", a worker named Lu Jingjuan, saw a pipe surge in the dike due to the rough tide, which could lead to a dam failure and thus make the whole sea construction project fail. So she jumped into the hole to plug it. Her heroic move encouraged many other workers to jump into the water, using their bodies to ensure the safety of the dam. The designer was particularly moved by the heroic spirit of Lu Jingjuan who fought in the midst of despair to gain hope for the future. The consumerist suites and afternoon tea spaces are in a sense a vanish mask that covers up the real memories of some ordinary people and embellishes the somewhat flashy life of today, as if those struggles have never existed. That's not right. Hence, the designer convinced our client to turn the water tower into a memorial to all the ordinary people who did heroic acts in desperate times. 

Creativity:
The designer saw the water tower as the breach hole of the dike, and designed a spiral staircase with a separate structure to symbolize those heroic ordinary people who plugged the leak with their bodies in the cavity of the water tower. This is a tower within another tower. The designer used the gold color to symbolize the great gesture of these ordinary people. The 100-step staircase, symbolizing a century, is made of eighty-four 50 cm diameter metal rods that form a separate golden tower inside the water tower. At the bottom of the golden tower is a map of Shanghai, with the year on each step, a chronicle of events recorded on the metal rods, and on the walls of the water storage bin of the water tower is a mural of photo transfers of the polder scene back then.

Functionality:
The top of the water tower opens so that visitors can look into the distance after ascending to the top. The glass cover at the top is weight-bearing by the glass itself. With the lighting design, the water tower that provided water for ordinary people back then becomes a light tower that honors ordinary people in the present.

Sustainability:
In contrast to the complete demolition, the old water tower façade has been retained. The history is perpetuated by the inclusion of a spiral staircase that records the history. The disused water tower is brought to life.