Harvard Memorial
What would the Berlin Holocaust memorial look like a little closer to home?
Harvard presidents, overseers, and faculty and staff members enslaved at least 70 people (Harvard Magazine).
This project imagines how we might honor them and their legacy by adapting Berlin's iconic Holocaust memorial and placing it in the middle of Harvard Yard.
Designing the memorial parametrically
Grasshopper and Rhino allowed me to set parameters for the number of columns and rows, as well as loft a curve to define their heights and the landscape beneath each block.
Grasshopper Definition
Two parametric design methods
Final form
Photogrammetry Process
Next I created the photogrammetry landscape scans to add the block-based memorial design into.
Method 1: Lidar scan Harvard Yard with Polycam
Issues: too large an area; 15 minute scan capture only 1/8th; accelerometer drift caused uneven terrain
Method 2: Photogrammetry scan Harvard Yard
Issues: photogrammetry of large area provided too little overlap in image dataset; model incomplete
Method 3: Google Earth → Photogrammetry via screen recording
Issues: degradation from making a model out of photos of a model; overhead satellite view doesn’t capture between trees
Rhino + Grasshopper Model Integration
Add the photogrammetric model into Rhino, remesh it down to 15k triangles, and modify the parameters in Grasshopper to align the Berlin Memorial blocks with Harvard Yard.
Final Form
Distribution
Re-upload to Polycam for easy viewing.
