Synthetic MemoryDigital Decay & Speculative ReconstructionS of Zaha Hadid’s Archival Fonds PhD

Laura Nica [PhD Year 3]

First UoW A+C Techne AHRC collaborative doctoral award, in partnership with the Zaha Hadid foundation

Supervisors: supervisors: Constance Lau (UoW), Helen Merrett (ZHF), Kester Rattenbury (External) & Jane Pavitt (ZHF, 2023-2024)

How does one document a digital object whose material substrate is slipping into obsolescence – an artefact surviving only through printed fragments, screenshots, glitches and half‑legible computational residues? This research investigates how digital archives generate synthetic memory, treating architectural files as unstable, processual entities rather than fixed records. By developing advanced indices for digital material, and focusing on two projects positioned across Zaha Hadid Architects’ shift from analogue to early computation [Vision for Madrid (1992) and the Phaeno Science Centre (1998–2005)], the study reveals the difficulties of compiling and interpreting

complex digital registers: hybrid heritage sites that are simultaneously material, computational and perpetually at risk of disappearance. The thesis makes several original contributions to knowledge, historicising early architectural computation by uncovering hidden digital narratives and introducing new archival evidence; it advances digital architectural humanities through multidimensional prototypes that articulate absence, drift and reappearance in decayed born‑digital objects, revealing interdependencies between analogue practices and their computational traces.

KEY WORDS: digital archives; Zaha Hadid architects; digital decay