Oculus - Winter 2015 - (Page 32) ©Courtesy of SITU Research and Forensic Architecture feature In April 2010, SITU Research collaborated with Forensic Architecture on a report investigating the death of Bassem Abu-Rahma, a Palestinian man killed during a peaceful protest in the West Bank village of Bil'in. A spatial analysis included this 3D virtual model reconstruction of the scene at the moment of the shooting. 3D for the Defense An architecture firm's research arm empowers human rights activism through spatial analysis B Y Jon At hA n L e r n e r If architecture is about creating beautiful spaces, SPEA can do so only in a metaphysical and paradoxical way, by helping to redress injustice. This kind of work "in its highest ambitions, is a form of accountability." 32 Oculus Winter 2015 A rchitecture would seem to have little to do with global human rights work. Yet SITU Research, a branch of Brooklyn-based SITU Studio, is undertaking a project called Spatial Practice as Evidence and Advocacy (SPEA) with just that in mind. Supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Oak Foundation, SITU will apply the technologies of geospatial analysis and visualization to help human rights groups in their factfinding, legal work, and advocacy campaigns. "It's very much at the perimeter of traditional architectural practice," explains Bradley Samuels, a SITU partner. If architecture is about creating beautiful spaces, SPEA can do so only in a metaphysical and paradoxical way, by helping to redress injustice. Its tools "are the same ones we use in our design projects," he says. "It's just that the human rights organizations haven't necessarily integrated these capabilities in-house." SPEA's first project is in aid of attorneys representing the families of 49 participants in the Maidan protests in Kiev, Ukraine, who were killed on February 20, 2014. "There's a lot of video content taken that day, documenting the same few hours from many different vantages," Samuels says. SPEA's role is "synthesizing all the spatial information that can help us understand what happened," not only the sequence of events, but also precisely where they occurred. It was "a well-organized protest in a dense urban context, so understanding the spatial realities of the site is a big part" of helping construct a legal case to hold the perpetrators responsible. In a courtroom, he points out, objective and quantifiable information can count. SPEA is not SITU Research's first human rights venture. The firm collaborated between 2010 and 2013 in a European Research Council project called Forensic Architecture - a title that in its startling juxtaposition of normally unrelated terms quickly indicates that disciplinary boundaries are being crossed. One investigation produced visuals to accompany a Human Rights Watch report on a crowded prison in Syria. Using Grasshopper software, SITU, says its website, "developed a dynamic 3D model with adjustable parameters reflecting the dimensions of the detention cell, the number of prisoners to be retained inside the cell, the area occupied by one prisoner inside the cell, the distance Reinventing Architecture: Design in a Digital World Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Oculus - Winter 2015 First Words Letter from Two Presidents Letter from the Editor Center for Architecture One Block Over Opener: Practical Attitudes ICE in the River: Cornell Tech’s Center of Connectivity Restoring – At Least Virtually – One of England’s Greatest Lost Buildings At the Corner of Past and Present The Design-Fabrication Dynamic How Big Data is Reshaping Architecture Architecture at the Digital Edge 3D for the Defense Thinking Beyond the Flat Page In Print 51-Year Watch Last Words Index to Advertisers Oculus - Winter 2015 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0317 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0217 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0117 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0416 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0316 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0216 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0116 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0415 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0315 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0215 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0115 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0414 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0314 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0214 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0114 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0413 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0313 http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/ARCQ/ARCQ0213 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/ARCQ0113 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/ARCQ0412 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/ARCQ0312 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/ARCQ0212 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/ARCQ0112 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/ARCQ0411 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/ARCQ0311 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/ARCQ0211 http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/ARCQ0111 http://www.nxtbookMEDIA.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.