Data Visualization
·
2025
Emotional data visualisation of an earthquake memorial
A data visualisation of our emotional journey through the Smritivan Earthquake Memorial, Bhuj — built for a storytelling course, not a client brief.
What I did
Research, data viz, wireframe, animation, visual design
Format
Website · high-fidelity prototype
Context
Storytelling course, MIT ID
We travelled to Bhuj as a class.
It didn't feel like a design project we were going for — just another academic journey. Conversations were loud, cameras were out, curiosity was high. Our professors weren't professors, just people enjoying the trip with us.
The next day, we entered Smritivan Earthquake Memorial.
There was no single moment that told us "this is where it changes" — but everything slowed down. Conversations faded. Movements became deliberate. Silence started feeling intentional.
The memorial didn't overwhelm us with facts. It revealed loss gradually.
Translate what you felt into a website. Not the architecture. Not the history. Not the statistics.
Just the feeling.
We realized quickly that traditional storytelling wouldn't work. Words felt insufficient. Images felt too literal. So we decided: why not turn our emotions into data, and visualize it — not as charts or metrics, but as interactive emotion language.
Each emotion experienced during the journey was treated as data.
Not quantified, but structured. The interface didn't explain grief — it was made for the user to arrive there.
Walking through Smritivan felt like moving through layers of emotion rather than space.
We translated this walk into a visual map — not of buildings, but of emotional states. Each point represents how we felt at that moment in the journey. This wasn't meant to be read like a floor plan. It was meant to be felt like a trace
Some things don't need interpretation. Only time.
The scale of loss, made imaginable.
The scale of loss is revealed through human comparison: crowds, distances, everyday actions. Statistics are grounded in bodies, movement, and space. This section doesn't aim to inform alone. It aims to make magnitude imaginable.
COMPARISON 01
28 million people were affected across Gujarat. That is similar to the population of countries such as Nepal or Malaysia.
COMPARISON 02
166,951 people were injured. If each injured person stood shoulder to shoulder, they would form a human chain stretching more than 100 kilometers, longer than the length of Kutch district itself.
COMPARISON 03
929,682 houses were deemed eligible for repair. Nearly one million families waiting for cracks to be filled and doors to close again.
The website ends the way the memorial does not with closure, but with continuation.
Smritivan is not a monument frozen in time. It continues through visitors, stories, and shared silence. Each visit becomes another layer added to memory. A reminder that remembering is an active act.
This project changed how I understand design.
Data can be emotional.
UX can be quiet.
Storytelling doesn't always need words.
Sometimes, design's role is simply to make space for feeling. This website is not an explanation of Smritivan — it is a digital echo of what it feels like to walk through it.
The website
See more projects
