Memory in Motion: Architecture of Perseverance

Case Study & Installation: The project elaborates on the role of architecture in preserving collective memory and history. Created as a template rather than a solution, It highlights the challenges of rebuilding after a disaster while maintaining the native identity. Using Ukraine as a case study, machine-learning algorithms were applied to create new architectural language for the future of the country. One that inspires future generations, yet, like a scar, makes us remember not to repeat mistakes of the past. The project deals with post-war reconstruction ideologies for Ukraine. It works with collective memory, trauma and local identity in the time of globalization of design. It’s meant to show alternative ways of thinking after destruction, whenever man-made or natural. Thus, it is made to serve as a framework for other cultures as well, using Ukraine as a case study. Created, intentionally to be provocative, the project is made to spark a conversation in the political and architectural communities.

Architecture is a container of collective memory, once it is destroyed, connection to the continuity of history is in danger. How do we rebuild after a disaster? How do we retain the memory of what happened yet be able to transcend it? Healing is not a cosmetic process - but something that articulates di erences both deeply divides and joints together.
Acceptance of the scar is an acceptance of existence. However, with globalization of the world, a sense of place is being lost. Worldwide,
metropolises morph one into another, while rich cultural heritage fades into the background. Ukraine, throughout history did not have a clear architectural style and thus identity within it. Looking throughout history, we can notice four distinct genres that make up the bulk of what can be seen within the country - Byzantine architecture of Kyivan Rus’, European and Ukrainian Baroque, traditional wooden architecture and lastly Soviet Modernism. Yet when the war is over, in what style do we build, and still retain collective memory and identity? Memory in Motion proposal is a framework rather than a solution. Using Machine Learning, it blends these styles to create a unique, arguably distinct Ukrainian architectural language – presented on ve case studies. The new ways of living will not be the same as the old. Protocols of human interaction are changing. The familiar old must be transformed, by conscious intention and design, into the
unfamiliar, radical new.