World Memory Vault

This project is one I worked on in my third year of Architecture school. The brief asked for a library designed using generative methods. The location was to be in Seattle, Washington.

Instead of storing digital records or sound, I chose to focus on storing human memory. I began by focusing on the specific memory profile of Seattle and the industries that the people have been working in.

After establishing a memory history of Seattle, I focused my research on what memory is, the shape it takes in the brain, it's chemical and psychological evolution over time.

The building itself takes its shape from the path a memory takes in the brain as it travels through the brain stem and bounces around the grey and white matter and back and forth through the hippocampus. This path I traced on a 3D grid layout of the structure of the brain. I then gave a physical presence and used Rhino3D's generative capabilities to render the final shape. The program of the building follows that same structure of the brain. People begin at reception (the hippocampus) and then can move through the building accessing or recording memories which are then stored in the achive on the forth and fifth floors (grey and white matter, respectively)

Finally I proposed that this Seattle Memory Library not be a one-off collection but a base for a world-wide World Memory Vault institution tasked with collecting the memories of humanity over time and launching them into space to preserve humanity in perpetuity.

Streetview Money Shot
Shot Through Top Window