Hero-Godsway

Dupont Oak

PRODUCT DESIGN3D WEBDEVELOPMENT

On September 3, 2026, a severe storm split an old oak in Dupont Circle, and neighbors covered its trunk with handwritten tribute notes that rain would soon wash away. In six days, I designed and built Dupont Oak, an interactive 3D park that keeps those memories and gives neighbors a digital home to share in their grief, add new tributes, and support environmental action.

Tools used for this project

  • Claude Code
  • Codex
  • Supabase
  • Vercel
Paper tributes pinned to the standing oak trunk beside the fallen crown in Dupont Circle as neighbors gather to read them.

Paper tributes on the standing trunk · Reporting by WUSA9 ↗

The 3D miniature of Dupont Circle from above: the ring road and its crossings, the round park with its walks and full trees, the fountain plaza, and, in a clearing, the stump of the fallen oak with clay flowers pressed into it.

The fallen oak Phone

Design explorations

Neighbors pinned poems, drawings, and thank-you notes to the standing trunk. I wanted their words to outlast the paper, so I built a permanent home online that keeps the warmth of the park, where anyone who loved the oak can still read them and add their own.

The 3D miniature of Dupont Circle from above: the ring road and its crossings, the round park with its walks and full trees, the fountain plaza, and, in a clearing, the stump of the fallen oak with clay flowers pressed into it.

The fallen oak Phone

Brand palette

I wanted the site to capture the look and feel of the Dupont Circle park itself, so I worked from sketch explorations of six leaf types and pulled colors straight from the park: forest green for the canopy, terracotta for exposed wood and the acorn pin, and sunlit gold for the clay flower, which makes every pin a visitor leaves look like it belongs there.

Leaf sketches drawn for this case study · clay pins generated with Codex

Leaf types Pencil sketches

Mapping the circle

A generic park would feel unfamiliar, so in the spirit of mapping the digital application to the real-life user experience, I traced DC’s 2025 aerial photo to model the fountain, six walks, white chairs, and twenty-four living trees. Neighbors recognize their own spots at a glance. This allows users and park regulars to carry their sense of awareness, familiarity, and control from life into the digital application.

Fallen oakBenchesFountainLiving trees

The places Diagram

Promoting community with privacy in mind

Most visitors open the site on their phones while in the park, so there are no logins to slow them down. They write a note, sign with one tap, press a flower into the bark or set one drifting on the fountain, and leave a heart on a neighbor’s tribute.

Leaving a tribute on a phone: the Leave a tribute sheet, You held the light for all of us typed, A park goer tapped, Choose a spot, the named spots, the camera close on the standing trunk among clay flowers, a tap, Place tribute, and the flower pressed into the bark.
On a phone, placing a tribute on the lawn by the stump: the yellow flower pin moves each time another spot is tapped, then Place tribute, Thank you, See your tribute: the camera comes close, the card opens, and the heart is tapped: it fills and shows 1.
On a phone: clay flowers floating on the fountain's water, then Return to the fallen tree, the camera flies back to the stump, and the featured tribute changes three times: Still a place to gather. Still a part of our circle. Even a broken branch can bring us together. You made a little room for us in the middle of the city.

Write and place Motion

Shared garden

Most users explore existing notes before they write their own, so Shuffle flies the camera from tribute to tribute. Neighbors reply with memories of their own or share a card, and a private link on each device lets authors edit or remove their words anytime, which keeps every tribute in its author’s hands.

On a phone: the Tributes feed over the park, then Shuffle flies the camera to a tribute and opens its card beside the pin, then on to the next.

Shuffle Motion

Promoting sustainability: plant the next tree

A memorial can also look forward. After reading or leaving a tribute, visitors can explore the circle’s living trees and donate directly to organizations supporting the environment. The app links to Casey Trees, Restore Mass Ave, and the Trust for the National Mall.

Plant a tree Two phones

Reflection

For me, this project is merely a good demonstration of spotting and seizing moments in our everyday life where we can leverage design or technology broadly to support community needs without friction.

3D modeling and renderings completed using Codex

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