Memorial design as information creation: Honoring the past through co-production of an informing aesthetic

Abstract

Information behavior scholars are increasingly exploring information creation; however, these studies focus primarily on individuals' processes. The Melbourne Korean War Memorial (MKWM) used an interdisciplinary co-creation process, combining expertise in architecture, industrial design, engineering, and history. Over a two-year period, the MKWM research/design team worked with government officials and community members, from ideation and prototype design, through construction and installation of the completed memorial. The finished product informs the viewer about historic events, while also meeting architectural and design best practices. The co-authors' analysis of the information co-creation process constructs a new model of an informing aesthetic, where the memorial design embeds three types of information: explicit (e.g., photographs); implicit (e.g., national flowers); and embodied (e.g., pathway elevation). By combining research expertise with community feedback, while meeting technical and government design needs, the memorial informs about the war through a combination of statistics, storytelling, and visual knowledge representations.