
Forensic Architecture
UK
Headquarters: London, UK
Founded in: 2010
Website: forensic-architecture.org
X: @ForensicArchi
Instagram: @forensicarchitecture
Facebook: @forensic.architecture
LinkedIn: forensic-architecture
Contact us for interview requests and further information.
Awarded
Forensic Architecture
“For pioneering digital forensic methods to ensure justice and accountability for victims and survivors of human and environmental rights violations.”
Forensic Architecture is a pioneering research agency dedicated to uncovering and documenting the truth about environmental and human rights violations using cutting-edge open-source investigation and digital modelling techniques. Based at Goldsmiths, University of London, Forensic Architecture integrates advanced technology with witness and historical accounts to create powerful visual and spatial reconstructions, which have been used as evidence in landmark legal cases worldwide.
Since its founding in 2010, Forensic Architecture has led the development of new methodologies that combine technology with human rights advocacy. They have conducted more than 100 investigations on behalf of affected communities, uncovering truths about events both historic, such as the German colonial genocide in Namibia, and current, like the 2017 fire at Grenfell Tower in London. Their innovative methodologies not only set new standards for accountability but also assist survivors in processing trauma.
In an era when truth and facts are constantly challenged, including by governments, Forensic Architecture’s work helps usher in a new layer of oversight to ensure accountability, harnessing technology and witness testimony. With a fierce commitment to collaborative work with frontline communities and to developing and disseminating new evidentiary techniques, the organisation’s work has significantly impacted international legal processes and human rights investigations. As such, they help to hold perpetrators accountable and empower communities to seek justice on their own terms.
We work on a principle that we call ‘the long duration of the split second’. We believe that looking at micro details can open a doorway to understanding broader historical, political and cultural contexts.
Eyal Weizman, Founder of 2024 Laureate Forensic Architecture
Biography
Forensic Architecture stands at the forefront of human rights investigations, combining technological innovation with a deep commitment to justice. Their work brings to light the hidden truths of political and military violence while also providing a blueprint for using new collaborative methodologies to seek accountability.







The Battle over Truth
With the proliferation of smartphones, social media, surveillance cameras and satellite imaging, there’s more documentation for any given event than ever before. At the same time, states and perpetrators of human rights violations have become increasingly adept at using technology to undermine facts and call survivors’ testimonies into question.
Operating in this “post-truth” era requires synthesising several — often hundreds of — pieces of evidence with survivor and witness testimony to present reliable investigations.
Forensic Architecture emerged in response to these challenges, realising that new technologies and interdisciplinary methods could fill the gap. By using architectural analysis, 3D modelling, open-source data, and interactive cartographies, Forensic Architecture provides accurate and accessible evidence that is admissible in courts and utilised by human rights organisations to pursue justice for affected communities.
Countering Architecture’s Role in Oppression
Forensic Architecture was founded by Eyal Weizman, a British-Israeli architect and professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths.
While studying architecture during the 1990s, he volunteered with the Palestinian Ministry of Planning and realised the central role of maps and spatial representation in the occupation. Palestinians were denied access to accurate maps, and sharing this vital information became a form of resistance. His efforts to gather and distribute maps led him in 2002 to draw the first accurate map of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This was an act of “counter cartography,” a concept drawn from Palestinian philosopher Edward Said, which aims to reclaim spatial representation as a tool for resistance against oppressive systems. This foundation was crucial in shaping Forensic Architecture’s future work, where architecture would serve as a method of investigation and testimony.
With the advent of satellite images, smartphones and social media, the emphasis shifted from mere mapping to incorporating photographic evidence and witness testimony of the event unfolding on the ground. “Counter cartography” turned into “counter forensics” and the interdisciplinary field of “forensic architecture” was born.
“Forensic architecture emerged out of a necessity of understanding that investigations required building social relations and working in a situated way — in place, putting oneself on the ground,” said Weizman.
Innovative Methodologies
Forensic Architecture’s success is rooted in its development of innovative research methodologies. Its work employs open-source data, 3D models, animations, and interactive cartographies to analyse and present evidence of violence. These tools allow Forensic Architecture to create precise and accessible documentation, which is crucial for legal accountability.
Forensic Architecture’s approach is unique in that it combines high technology with Indigenous and community-based knowledge. This fusion allows them to engage deeply with local communities while maintaining a rigorous scientific approach to evidence collection.
One of the organisation’s most important contributions stemming from this approach is the practice of “situated testimony,” which uses immersive 3D environments to help survivors reconstruct their experiences. This process, which allows survivors to revisit their experience of traumatic incidents in a safe and controlled environment, was also born out of key principles of the emerging field of “forensic psychology.”
“Architecture and memory are related. Architecture is always a collaborative process and it allows witnesses to re-construct memories that are fragmented and torn apart by the effect of trauma,” said Weizman.
Major Projects and Impact
Forensic Architecture’s contributions to the field of human rights include more than 100 investigations across at least 31 countries and territories, utilising their forensic approach to uncover hidden truths about war crimes, environmental injustices and genocides. Each investigation takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years to complete. Forensic Architecture typically begins investigations when approached by survivors and victims’ families and involves them throughout the process of an investigation taking shape.
Their interdisciplinary approach has led to significant outcomes in legal and human rights cases, including contributions to the International Criminal Court, the Truth Commission in Colombia, the European Court of Human Rights, and United Nations investigations.
One of Forensic Architecture’s most significant cases involved the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire in the UK, the deadliest fire in the country since World War II. The agency provided essential forensic analysis for 800 plaintiffs, many of whom were living in the building as part of a social housing programme, in one of the largest civil suits in British history. Forensic Architecture conducted a series of situated testimony interviews with eleven survivors, bereaved family members and nearby residents to reconstruct their recollections of the night of the fire.
In support of the victims of extreme-right terror attacks in Greece and Germany, the organisation also contributed decisive evidence to the trial in Greece that resulted in the banning of the Golden Dawn party. The organisation has also contributed to parliamentary enquires in Germany related to the targeting of migrant communities by the National Socialist Underground (NSU) and in the case of the Hanau terror attacks.
The investigation into the 2022 destruction of the Mariupol Drama Theatre during the Russian invasion of Ukraine is another example of Forensic Architecture’s responsiveness to current events and efforts to support and amplify the work of smaller collaborating organisations. The theatre, once a refuge in the besieged city, was a powerful symbol of civilian resistance – temporarily becoming a microcosm of Mariupol itself, a city within a building. Working in collaboration with their Ukrainian partner organization, the Center for Spatial Technologies, Forensic Architecture’s reconstruction of the events surrounding the destruction of the theatre has brought global attention to Russia’s “strategies of terror” and attempts to obscure evidence of their own crimes.
Forensic Architecture has used its approach to investigate crimes related to the environment, including shedding light on illegal gold mining and violence in Yanomami Indigenous territories of the Amazon Rainforest.
In partnership with its Berlin-based sister agency, Forensis, Forensic Architecture has also been involved in the reconstruction of historical atrocities, working with Nama and Ovaherero civil society groups to uncovered information regarding scores of sites related to the colonial genocide in Namibia perpetrated by Germany between 1904 and 1908. Working with oral history transmitted through the descendants of victims and survivors, Forensic Architecture’s investigation located and reconstructed many of the sites of this multifaceted atrocity, including multiple burial grounds and the site of the deadliest concentration camp of the colony on Shark Island. Beyond its significance in empowering descendants, the work is currently being used to oppose infrastructural development projects on Shark Island in an effort to preserve the ancestral land together with the evidence it harbours of past colonial violence.
Through these cases, Forensic Architecture has empowered survivors and victims’ families, giving them a platform to share their experiences and tools with which to seek justice and accountability. With these recent historical investigations, the agency has also sought to open up the notion of testimony as something that is not only the purview of immediate eyewitnesses but also includes inherited testimonies and oral traditions.
During Israel’s war on Gaza, which broke out in response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, and which the UN’s top court has called “plausible” genocide, Forensic Architecture carried out several investigations into ongoing war crimes. The organisation has lost several of its closest Palestinian collaborators during the war and has also had to limit its contact with those on the ground to avoid putting them in danger. Despite these losses and hardships, Forensic Architecture has produced six investigations, including into the killing of Hind Rajab and Israel’s use of measures, such as evacuation orders, to facilitate systemic mass displacement of Palestinians.
Forensic Architecture’s work has not been without challenges. Their investigations often occur in politically sensitive areas, where speaking out against state violence can be dangerous. In certain instances, due to the complex political environment in which Forensic Architecture operates, applying the same standards of evidence across different contexts has provoked government backlash.
Global Reach and Partnerships
Forensic Architecture’s influence extends globally, with their work being showcased in leading cultural institutions and media outlets worldwide. In fact, Forensic Architecture’s spatial and open-source methods, which they actively encourage others to take up and adapt, are now being used by in-house forensic investigation teams at news outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist and the BBC. NGOs have also sought Forensic Architecture’s expertise and support: the agency has collaborated with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), as well as scores of locally grounded smaller groups.
The organisation has pioneered a new way of presenting and disseminating human rights work, through a series of deeply researched exhibitions and collaborative public programmes at the world’s top cultural venues, including the Venice Biennale, Documenta, the Tate, the HKW in Berlin, MAMU in Bogota and al-Qattan in Ramallah.
To disseminate their methods, Forensic Architecture has developed partnerships across the globe, including in Istanbul, Bogota, Mexico City, Athens, Berlin, Paris and Kyiv. They have worked closely with Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organisation, to launch a forensic architecture investigative unit in Ramallah, the first of its kind in the Middle East. In the last year, two new independent units led by former Forensic Architecture researchers have launched in Colombia and Mexico, where they have applied their embedded knowledge and local networks to focus on region-specific investigations. These partnerships are not just technical collaborations but deep, community-based engagements that empower local actors to take control of their own narratives and evidence production. Forensic Architecture’s methods and philosophy of grounding investigations in local knowledge have become a model for human rights organisations around the world.
A Tool for Activists
Forensic Architecture has established itself as a leader in the field of human rights, combining cutting-edge technology with a deep commitment to accountability. Their work brings to light the hidden truths of political and military violence while offering a new model for how technology can be used in the pursuit of justice. As they continue to expand their global reach and refine their methodologies, Forensic Architecture remains a powerful force in empowering communities to seek justice.
“The optimistic vision for the future is that our work will no longer be necessary, and we as architects can all start designing beautiful sustainable things,” said Weizman. “Until then, what is important about forensic architecture is not our practice; but the larger field and its potential to provide another set of tools to give activists and frontline communities a means of engaging in and living through our times.”