INVESTIGATIVE ARCHITECTURE
Repurposing design as a tool for defending human rights
Today, when most armed conflict takes place in cities, when buildings are the most common targets, and when it is in those very buildings that most civilians die in war, Forensic Architecture aims to understand and seek accountability for the violence of war and repression. By repurposing existing design tools and architectural methods, Forensic Architecture has been able to verify the location and timing of airstrikes and to identify their perpetrators in Pakistan, Gaza, Syria, and elsewhere and to prove that human rights violations have taken place in these cases. Forensic Architecture reconstructs the architecture of buildings before and after a strike in order to produce evidence for international prosecution teams, NGOs, the UN, and environmental and political justice groups for use in legal processes worldwide, and, most importantly, to develop an investigative architectural practice that will tell the stories of those who live there and improve the protection of civilian lives.