Memory in Becoming: Investigating how the memorial landscape architecture affects memory through the lens of affordance

Abstract: This paper attempt to explore how memories are affected by memorial landscape architecture through a psychological perspective, known as the affordance. In order to conduct this interdisciplinary research including design, psychology and memory studies, this research project is grounded in a case study of the Tsunami Memorial, Gravitational Ripples, in Stockholm. By using a phenomenological approach, and combining the empirical material with environmental psychology and neuro-cognitive psychology, the thesis examines how the movements and natural elements in this memorial affect personal memories and social memories. Throughout the thesis, the argumentation moves away from a static point of understanding memories, instead, argues that the memories in the Tsunami Memorial are indeed a processual memory, in which its nature is the continuity of internalisation and exchange. Towards the end, it also points out that the limitation of solely using psychological knowledge to analyse the memories might lead to a simplified and shallow understanding of human memory.