The Last Archive — Media Museum

Location New York City, NY

Year 2026

Instructor Jackilin Hah Bloom Damjan Jovanovic Elena Manferdini

Partners Hyung Gu (Andy) Han Sungmin Jung

Software Rhino 8 Unreal Engine Claude Code

Description

Overview This project started with the prompt of a "Media Museum". We wanted to have a public gathering space, so we integrated the High Line into our project to create two levels of public park: one at ground level and one connected to the High Line. However, my partners and I decided to explore the idea of a museum whose main function is media storage as opposed to media display. We also wanted to explore how that media would be stored, and the resources needed to maintain the archive.

The main massing is a rectangular prism filled with data towers, where the digital media is stored. We propose a cooling system that would draw water from the Hudson, circulate it through the cooling infrastructure, and filter it through algae tanks on the facade before returning it to the river. The cooling and filtration sequence is a design proposal. The algae is bioluminescent and glows when it is moved around in water, so we explored timed air bursts in the tanks as a possible secondary display. Air pumped into the tanks at varying intervals would be used to create patterns, images, and text on the facade as a secondary method of display.

Explore the interactive diagram →

A note from me

[How the facade became something people could play with, or a decision you made with your collaborators.]