The Role of Memory in Architecture and Materials

Martina Decker’s 2003 entry for the Chi Chi Earthquake Memorial Competition was not chosen to commemorate that 1999 Taiwanese disaster. Yet her beautiful manifestation of loss lives on in the Boston Unbuilt Architecture Awards, which bestowed the project an honorable mention this year.

The memorial works through tricks of visual perception that focus or scatter the images on circular transparent walls while the visitor moves within the structure. As an architect interested in memory, Decker explains that, “What I find attractive about such projects is that you can implement strong ideas, but it’s still very architectural in the way people walk through the space.”

Human memory is only one part of Decker’s oeuvre. She was a runner up in Metropolis’s Next Generation® Design Competition 2007 for SmartScreen, an architectural façade that opens and closes in response to rising and falling solar temperatures hitting the curtain wall. It is conceived as a cladding made with fabric and nickel titanium shape-memory alloy (SMA), a science fiction like material that is available in the real world. Mainly used in medical applications, the alloy changes structure to create predetermined shapes at varying temperatures.

Decker and partner Peter Yeadon are pushing to build a working prototype of SmartScreen, but it involves some complicated maneuvering with physics and engineering. The performance of SMAs varies, depending on the proportion and type of chemical elements. “We have been in conversation with SMA manufacturers in Asia and Europe that already offer materials that might work for our purpose,” says Decker. “However after the first trial tests, more optimal SMAs might need to be engineered for our specific application. The next step is to get funding and have them produce the right shape that would operate as an integral component of the SmartScreen.”

Between competitions and grand conceptual innovations, Decker’s day to day practice focuses on interior environments. Currently she’s working on a renovation for a textile weaving studio. See more from Decker at www.martinadecker.net.