New Yorkers next year will be able to contemplate the World Trade Centre attacks around two vast pools on the site of the twin towers; Madrid has a column of glass bricks to mark the terrorist attacks there; and now London is to create its own memorial to the victims of bombings that hit the capital on July 7, 2005.

The design unveiled yesterday by the architects Carmody Groarke is on a more human scale than the American and Spanish projects. It consists of 52 steel columns, one for each innocent life lost, arranged in a clearing at the southeast corner of Hyde Park. Each column stands 3m (about 10ft) tall, weighs about a tonne and is cast from stainless steel in a process that ensures that each one is subtly different from the others.

Andy Groarke, one of the architects, said that each pillar's unique pattern will be sealed within seconds as the steel starts to solidify in the cast, a poetic response to “a life lost in an instant”. The firm won the commission last November, beating about 30 other applicants from around Europe.

Antony Gormley, creator of The Angel of the North, acted as an independent adviser for the £1million installation, which will be unveiled on July 7 next year. Visitors will be encouraged to move between the columns, which will be clustered together in four interlocking groups - representing the four bombs that exploded that morning at Aldgate and Edgware Road Underground stations, on a Piccadilly Line train travelling between King's Cross and Russell Square, and on a No 30 double-decker bus at Tavistock Square. Every column will be inscribed with the date, time and location of the incident that the cluster symbolises.

The final design grew out of seven months of intense consultation with the bereaved families. Carmody Groarke was adamant that it did not want to present the families with a fait accompli, Mr Groarke said. “We thought it would be completely impertinent. We have taken nothing for granted and had no preconceived ideas.”

Julie Nicholson, who quit her post as a vicar in Bristol because she felt unable to forgive her daughter Jennifer's killer, said that she had initially felt “that it would be very difficult to find a memorial that would adequately express everything that needs to be expressed about those who died and the manner in which they died”.

But she said that she was reassured when the designers explained their plan “to find a silent thing that can eloquently say the unsayable”. She said the memorial “not only honours and represents the 52 that were killed; in its completeness and use of materials, the design itself is something that is world class. It's a great piece of art as well as a memorial.”

Grahame Russell, who lost his son Philip at Tavistock Square, said that the pillars “remind me that prior to July 7 these 52 people who died stood tall in this world; the material itself is as indestructible as the memories we have of them. We wanted a proper memorial, so we have taken our time.”

The chosen site is set slightly apart from the hubbub of the park, but is within earshot of the everyday roar of the traffic on Park Lane, a reminder of the ordinary, innocent lives that the bombings tore apart.

Saba Mozakka, who lost her mother, Behnaz, at King's Cross, said: “The choice of location was very important to us. July 7 was not just a personal loss but affected the city as a whole. We're very proud that it's in Hyde Park.”

The design team for the memorial also included Ove Arup & Partners and landscape architects Colvin & Moggridge. A planning application for the design has been submitted to Westminster City Council and the public will be able to view the design on its website next week.

Unlike the Hyde Park project, the memorial due to open at Ground Zero in New York on September 11 next year is the product of a design competition. With 13,683 applications and 5,201 memorial submissions from 63 nations, it was the biggest such contest in history.

The winner was Michael Arad, an Israeli who had never done anything of comparable size. Initial costs were estimated at up to $1 billion for the project but have been trimmed back as Mr Arad has had to compromise his vision. The design sets giant waterfalls in the footprints of the vanished twin towers amid eight acres of trees.

The Madrid memorial is an 11-metre-high cylinder made of 15,000 glass bricks outside Atocha station, the destination of the four trains that were attacked. It opened on the third anniversary of the killings last year.

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