Resonant Infrastructure Soundscape as Generator of Coastal Memorial Architecture

Abstract

This thesis investigates how architecture can function as an environmental instrument that mediates relationships between environmental soundscape, and collective memory. Situated in Herring Cove, Nova Scotia, the project responds to the 1940 Hebridean pilot boat disaster, in which nine harbour pilots lost their lives at the entrance to Halifax Harbour. While the event profoundly affected the local community, its commemoration today remains limited. Through site analysis experiments with acoustic instruments, this thesis explores how environmental forces such as wind and waves can generate a memorial architectural form. The project proposes a memorial pathway composed of three interventions: a Sea Organ embedded within the existing breakwater infrastructure, an Aeolian Harp Chapel activated by coastal winds, and a Bell Tower Lookout derived from navigational infrastructure studies. Together these instrumental architectures transform environmental forces into acoustic experience, framing the act of listening as a spatial practice of remembrance.