The discussions surrounding the new round of plans for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site have raised some interesting issues.

THE SACRED
A significant notion parlayed about is that the site is sacred or hallowed ground. There's a number of things wrong with this notion, least of which is the idea that somehow a center of hardball commercial capitalism has become sanctified by the act of destruction.

Sacred ground is a place set aside by a community for the advancement of religious or spiritual purposes. In most cases, sacred ground is either a gathering place for the living or a final resting place for the dead.

Sacred ground is almost always someplace other than where people live and die. It is someplace special, removed from the details of ordinary live. It where we go to focus our attentions on the truths that should govern our living and our reverence for those past.

One wonders what we are to worship at this new sacred ground. Are we to worship capitalism? Then make more money. Are we to worship democracy? That's a singular oxymoron -- separate church and state. Are we to worship our innocence lost? Get over it.

Memorial ground is very much different from sacred ground. Memorial ground is where we remember specific people who have died. Usually people are memorialized because they did great things, or because the event that caused their death was of great note. Such is the case of the World Trade Center site.

A memorial is a place of remembrance, where the community pays respect to those who perished. Most importantly, it is a place that is integrated into the living patterns of the community whereas sacred ground is removed from the daily patterns. At a memorial, our moving on and continuing to build our community honors those that died.

If we are to succeed in rebuilding downtown we must look at a meaningful process of mourning that allows us to move on and beyond. We must dispel this idea of the site as sacred ground. Memorialize, don't sanctify.

TALLNESS
Many of the plans and much of the commentary insist on building something that would be the tallest structures in the world as a symbol that we stand un cowed by the terrorists. Clearly, this is flipping 'em the bird, big time.

But here's the question. If we were to build the tallest structure, does that mean that no one would be able to build something higher? If the height of the structure is both our defiance and our celebration, then if someone built higher, they would be challenging not just an economic symbol but a symbol of our very being as a country.

This is reminiscent of the zoning laws in Washington, DC, where no building is supposed to be higher than the US Capitol.

CULTURAL CENTER
Many of the comments and directives call for the new site to provide a cultural center to lower Manhattan. This is probably a mistake because it is both off the mark and confuses the issues.

The whole notion of culture in America is itself a confusing topic. By nature, we are a country of pioneers and entrepreneurs who take pride ignoring tradition. The problem is that high culture, at least, is very much about tradition and elite prestige. High culture is wonderful and is worthy of all of our support even as we break rules and push on.

It is not, however, something around which we should program the rebuilding.

What makes more sense is to emphasize creating a civic center on the site. This is a much broader and much more inclusive notion. It encompasses commerce, government, entertainment and, perhaps, even some culture. It is about whole of our community, and not just one aspect.

SUMMARY
If we owe the dead anything, it is to build a better urban center.

This means making downtown more humane by integrating the site into the street fabric of downtown. Don't raise the site up on a platform again. Don't give in to great sculptural fantasies. Focus on the pedestrians provide layers of space and uses.

This also means pushing the environmental (green, sustainable) technologies for all they are worth and more. Make every surface a solar collector. Design for natural processes throughout. Cut the energy use by at least half over that used in the old towers. The biggest bird we could flip, in my opinion, is to tell them to take their oil and shove it.

Finally, this means straightening out the transit conditions to make downtown more accessible by public transit, then we have definitely made things better. We have the opportunity to implement major infrastructure improvements and if we don't, then we have failed in a major way.

PS: The Plans
After much consideration, I favor the plans presented by the so-called New York Architects and the Petersen group.

Overall the Petersen plans showed the greatest sophistication of integrating the site into the rest of downtown. Each of the existing streets acts as a gateway into the site. There is a lot of human scale open spaces. There is a great deal of variety in the layering of horizontal planes open space. The buildings mass well around the site, and they seem to grow out of the site rather than jut up, disconnected, for a barren plaza.

I'm not sure I like the esplanade down the west side. It's one of those things that looks great on paper but somehow don't work well in practice. There's already sufficient wandering space along the river front. I think the esplanade would only confuse the interaction of spaces and functions.

Architecturally I think the NYA plan has the greatest intrigue. Their shadow memorial is the most elegant, carving out areas for contemplation of the people who died and at the same time for the architecture lost without disrupting the existing urban fabric.

Their grid towers are masterful in conception. They introduce a new scalar, replacing the rectangle of window with the rectangle of their lattice. They physically break the towered space into identifiable vertical spires and horizontal connectors. There is the promise of creating sub-communities centered around the exterior vertical gardens on top of the horizontals. This is a fundamental difference from the rest of the enclosed garden spaces that reinforce the separation between human and the environment.

In very clean, simple terms they propose an expanded vision of the vertical sphere of urban space while moving beyond the tired modern rhetoric of so many of the other schemes presented.