Babiy Yar Memorial

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: In 2010, Roland Snooks and colleagues at Kokkugia designed the Babi Yar Memorial to mark the site (in Kiev, Ukraine) where Nazis massacred more than 30,000 Jewish people in 1941. This unbuilt memorial develops and articulates an approach to architectural design that draws on the logic of swarm intelligence and operates through multi-agent algorithms. In 2013, the work was acquired by FRAC and included in the Naturalising Architecture exhibition, the inaugural exhibition at FRAC's new building. This major exhibition documented a new architectural paradigm that has developed out of complexity theory, computation and a focus on emergent phenomena. It was curated by Marie-Ange Brayer, FRAC director and Frédéric Migayrou, Deputy Director of the Centre Pompidou, Paris. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: The Babi Yar Memorial explores the generation of intricate ornamental spaces from algorithmic design processes. The project is an inverted monument. Rather than a monument as object, it is an immersive memorial space is designed as an intricate bronze interior. FRAC describes the project as: 'A fissured mineral monolith whose centre seems to have been consumed by a torrent of bronze rises on a snow-covered landscape'. The project establishes a contradiction between the solidity of the stone form and the intricacy of the bronze memorial - a contradiction that is mirrored in the design process, between direct modelling and generative multi-agent algorithmic strategies. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: Aside from its inclusion in the exhibition and acquisition for FRAC's permanent collection, the significance of the Babi Yar Memorial is further demonstrated by extensive publication. The memorial has been peer reviewed in the following leading international publications: 'Evolo Journal' (USA), 'Pulsation in Architecture' (USA), 'Fahrenheit' (Mexico), and 'Beaux Arts' (France).