It’s hard to believe that it’s been nine years since the infamous day. We can’t help but remember and honor all of the victims, heroes, and their families. But up until now, there has been no real way to visit and pay homage to those who fell nine years ago.

Plans have  been released for the National 9/11 World Trade Center Memorial. This will honor not only the September 11th attacks, but also the February 26, 1993 bombing. According to Silverstein Properties, the World Trade Center site will include 5 new skyscrapers, National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center, World Trade Center Transportation Hub, Retail Complex, and Performing Arts Center.

The WTC Memorial design, Reflecting Absence, will consist of two voids in the footprints of the original Twin Towers, which will feature rings of cascading water falling into illuminated reflecting pools. This will be surrounded by a plaza filled with oak trees, and the names of the 2,979 who perished in the September 11th attacks in NYC, Washington DC, & Pennsylvania, and the February 1993 WTC bombing will be inscribed around the edge of the memorial waterfalls.

The museum will offer visitors an opportunity to deepen their experience at the site, encountering both the enormity of the loss and the triumph of the human spirit. Construction began in March of 2006. The plaza is scheduled to open next fall, followed by the museum in 2012. Already, though, one can’t help but be moved by looking through some of the renderings that have been released.

The scheme Reflecting Absence by architect Michael Arad and the landscape architect Peter Walker was selected from a design competition that drew more that 5,200 entrants from 63 nations.

“The Design strives to make visible what is absent,” Michael Arad said. “The primary responsibility we have is to those we lost that day.”

For more information on the construction and design check out www.national911memorial.org

As you get ready for the weekend ahead take a moment to look back and remember, but also look forward to what is to come.