What is Being Subverted?
1 Death culture
2 Sobriety of cemeteries
3 Anonymity of cemeteries
4 Military memorials
Fictional Case Study Questions
Can a cemetery have more options for internment and cremation?
Is it appropriate to have parts of a cemetery be whimsical?
Can visiting a cenotaph invoke the emotions and feelings of war?
Can cemetery densification or infill be even more dense while still being respectful?
Can the tradition and rituals of ground burials be provided for cremated remains?
Can an ordinary water ditch become an interment feature?
Dictation
This project came from a public tender. It sought consulting services for an existing cemetery that’s been around for about 80 years beside the two-lane Sunshine Coast Highway between Gibson and Sechelt. As the area’s population grows and ages, the cemetery is running out of room for the dead.
The proposal sought ideas about densifying the current cemetery by adding more space for cremation ashes and possibly offering stacked burials. Stacked burials are becoming quite common. The person who dies first is buried deeper than the second, who is on top later.
The client was also looking for ways to sell people greener burials by not using chemicals or decay-resistant coffins.
The last part of the tender call sought ways to renovate or improve a military cenotaph beside the highway. This cenotaph is a round stone memorial near the road for Canadian soldiers who died serving their country in World War I and II.
We chose this site as a case study because it was unfamiliar. We took it on with little thought, thinking it would mix things up if we did one case study well outside our comfort zone.
I know the area around the cemetery. DJA designed two projects down the highway about ten years ago. I’ve driven past this cemetery, but not hundreds of times. It’s nondescript and a bit bleak. The formal, solemn use of the land feels too close to the busy highway. It’s not very peaceful, and the site is unspectacular. The site is bisected by a drainage ditch running through the middle, which is nothing more than a creek that they straightened out, overly drawing attention to its practical purpose. The rest of the site is just a mowed lawn.
Our studio has no experience with this project typology, but we know cemeteries because of the funerals we have attended. I’m interested in it because it combines making a building and making a site or taking a site and improving it. As I looked at the site in person, in drawings, and with photos, I saw that our cultural traditions around death and burial can seem sterilized and hidden. Design research took us all over the place, more than we ever planned. One irreverent book helped me see the death industry as necessary but culturally weird. Caitlin Doughty’s book Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory influenced this project. She writes about North America’s substantial funerary sector, which everyone would see more clearly if its systems were subverted.
Some West Coast indigenous peoples used to put their deceased into cedar boxes and then put the boxes up in the trees. Even though the containers eventually fell apart, and the bones fell, there’s something poetic about how they honoured their dead by raising them into the air. It seems better than putting them in the ground where worms live. Green burials are just a slight tweak on the materials the funeral industry already uses, so cleaner and less toxic approaches to burial don’t solve any cemetery’s overcrowding problem.
Cemeteries today have flat headstones level with the ground so that groundskeepers can mow the lawn more efficiently with riding mowers. This flattens individual’s only permanent marker of their life on earth. We should rediscover a sense of choice, variety, and reverence for modern cemeteries.
Cemeteries today have flat headstones level with the ground so that groundskeepers can mow the lawn more efficiently with riding mowers. This flattens individual’s only permanent marker of their life on earth. We should rediscover a sense of choice, variety, and reverence for modern cemeteries.
In the past, if someone had more money and wanted to seem distinguished or essential, they opted for a taller or more fantastic headstone or a small granite or marble structure. These fancy burial options are still available at some cemeteries but are too expensive for most people who opt for lawn-flat headstones.
If someone chooses to be cremated, the ashes can be scattered, taken home (which is most common), or kept in a small mailbox-type structure called a columbarium.
The modern world likes individuality. This is a strong human need. People in society make these choices every day. Think custom license plates, bumper stickers, or cat photos used as a phone screen saver. Providing distinct options at a cemetery might be crass, or it might take off like crazy.
Ground Columbarium
At a recent funeral, I noticed it was just like the movies with flowers on the casket and everyone standing in a circle. It is a bit unnerving when you become conscious of other headstones surrounding you, populated with stranger names. You are standing above and on top of dead people, and it’s in your face that other people are buried there. It feels slightly disrespectful. But as you look down, you can at least concentrate on one headstone at a time.
Cremating people saves space. If people like the idea of their ashes being buried in the ground, they can buy a tiny plot and get a small headstone. If a cemetery aims to save space, these plots will be tightly spaced. You’re probably looking at nine others as you look at one tiny headstone. Taking your eyes off the surrounding headstones with all those names and dates will be difficult.
Our first cemetery invention is a device that looks like a cross between a wheelbarrow and a rolling fertilizer spreader. This may seem irreverent or crass because cemetery groundskeepers use the same tools to maintain the lawns. You could look at it the other way and say the devices are entirely at home. Our invention has a hole in the bottom, and the four sides taper towards the hole. The interior might be mirrored or painted a cheery colour. Visitors can choose the colour they want, like tree green or sky blue. Or maybe black if they are feeling sober. This rolling invention is no different than cutting a hole out of a piece of paper to highlight one thing. People who spray paint cars or machines always do this. Or it could be compared to looking through your hands as they are held in a tubular shape to look at something with focus. These rolling viewfinders will make visiting the tiny headstone of someone you love more pleasant, respectful, and intense. If the cemetery wants to cater to aging eyes, certain rolling viewfinders could have glass lenses to make the headstone appear bigger. The small font would be easier to read. These rolling “reading glasses” are particularly useful as society ages.
Stacked Log Columbarium
The second invention we designed was inspired by the many people on the Sunshine Coast who work in logging. The biggest employer near Gibsons is a wood mill. This region is covered with second-generation wood and forests since the whole area has been completely logged once before. You’re always one or two degrees of separation from the forest industry in this region. And if you have an acreage, you probably still burn wood firewood for heat and store the wood in neat stacks.
The highway seems too close to the cemetery. Visiting the cemetery is often unpleasant, with the hum of trucks and cars speeding past. Again, if cremation is one of the best ways to save space, what if the dead’s ashes are put inside a ceramic or concrete piece of “firewood”? These “logs” could be round or split-shaped; you could choose. People could get their name on the end printed on stainless or galvanized steel plaque, and you make a stack of firewood from them. This idea might not start right at the ground, so no one has to get down on their hands and knees to visit their loved ones. The plaques on the end of the log could be inset slightly, like how a log looks when it rots out from its core. This log wall would be beautiful and impactful over time. The wall will get taller as the road inevitably gets busier, so the cemetery will stay quiet. If the wall gets quite tall, reading the plaques on the ends of the higher logs will be hard. A rolling ladder or platform will be needed. This detail can be resolved later as part of a future tender call.
Riverfront Condo Columbarium
The third thing we designed was a condominium columbarium along the site’s drainage ditch. I wondered what people who don’t want their final resting place inside a log might want. What would happen if people had a little more money but were still keen to choose a space-saving measure like cremation? Can we make a columbarium with a touch of class? With street appeal? Many retirees move to the Sunshine Coast to live in waterfront condominiums, spending their twilight years living with floor-to-ceiling glass looking over the water. Indeed, one’s final resting place could and should have a similar ambiance. This would be great for the cemetery’s marketing and bottom line.
Our design proposes that each columbarium unit has a balcony where visitors can put flowers in a small pot. No one likes high rises on the Sunshine Coast (that is so Vancouver) so the maximum columbarium height will be five to six stories. It could grow over time so panoramic penthouse units could be marketed in the future. Either way, people could choose which floor their unit was on. The higher ones would cost a little more. However, like lots of gardens or courtyard resorts, the lower units have better views of the garden and the “river.” Since many retirees and the elderly prefer gated communities and because death (for now) is entirely sanitized in our culture, we propose that visitors can’t get too close to the condo columbarium. Each unit would have floor-to-ceiling glass; if the cremated deceased chose, their remains would be seen through the glass in a small urn. These urns could come in different styles to reflect the personality of their owner. Some interesting options might be Old English, Mid-Century Modern, or West Coast Rustic.
If the deceased’s family prefers, window coverings or frosted glass will be an option for those requesting a bit more privacy. A small EPV on the roof can light the units’ interiors at night. The unit’s light could be turned on or off by downloading an app through the Sunshine Coast Regional District’s website. This app should be developed under a separate tender call. Visitors can select the name and number of their deceased, which will be a very convenient feature even for visitors dropping by the cemetery at dawn, dusk, or even on rainy or overcast days.
To respectfully reinforce the idea that this condo columbarium separates the living from the dead, visitors can only approach the condo’s balconies from the opposite side of the “river.” Flowers could only be placed on the dead’s balconies by reaching across the running water with modified weed eater handles (combined with garbage grabbers). This detail will provide a lot of cachet, keeping the resale value of this condo columbarium development high. It is a reality that some potential clients in their twilight years will purchase two or more resting places as investments, leaving their options open to enjoy potential resting places in a few different climates.
A Cenotaph You Can Get Into
The fourth idea we designed was an improved military cenotaph. The renovation of the cenotaph was a wild card in this case study. The existing rock memorial is nothing special. It seems disconnected from the cemetery, and I don’t think anyone would visit it on purpose.
In our era of constant digital stimulation, the stunted little memorial with a plaque hardly makes anyone think about the sacrifice of Canada’s armed forces. As our population ages, most people don’t know anyone who served in World War I or II, where Canada suffered its highest number of military deaths. Canada has not played a significant role in any armed conflict in many decades, but any veterans who died (right up to the present day) should still be honoured with a new cenotaph.
Slightly inspired by the cemetery’s linear creek, the first design move we proposed was to tear down the current cenotaph and re-use the field stones elsewhere. We turned a positive into a negative in two ways. The new cenotaph will be a hollow pedestrian trough under the highway. This will be very practical. It will allow people to safely enter the cemetery from the other side of the highway; it will let the cemetery possibly expand to the other side of the highway if it absolutely runs out of space someday, even with our strategic densification measures.
We started with a trough or trench because even though only World War One was fought in the trenches, the saying “stuck in the trenches” is still used to refer to any conflict, war or not. Soldiers in World War II were also hunkered down into the earth to fight or take cover, so this cenotaph’s shape and location are fitting. Visitors would go down a gentle ramp, and then move forward under the active highway. Twinned generic precast concrete lane dividers suddenly drop deep into the trough. Suddenly, you approach two precast concrete walls with the familiar small holes. Cranes use the holes to lift the highway dividers. These holes are the new cenotaph’s flower holders. In between round plaques with soldiers’ names, dates of birth, and dates of death are inscribed. You’ve never seen such a tall highway divider, making the world feel foreign, familiar, huge, and cramped. Visitors will notice how the inscribed names seem like regular boys and girls who were too young to die.
This cenotaph is intentionally uncomfortable, a bit like a basement bedroom or rec room for teenagers, an underbelly world of the young. It is fitting as a memorial environment because teens and young adults are always drawn to underpasses or tunnels, graffiti or carving their names, trying to place themselves permanently in the world and have independence. Seeing young soldiers’ names presented in an equally soggy or hidden place will hopefully be emotional and sobering.
The space would be very loud, referring to the noise and hell of war. Cars and trucks speeding overhead roar across galvanized bar grating, the same kind that BC Ferries uses for ferry loading bridges. It will be intentionally immersive. It would be like being stuck in a trench during war. Visitors will quickly learn about being underground, about fear, and about anticipation. Sometimes the space would be quiet with no traffic. These lulls would be randomly broken, like being shelled or shot at.
Steel trap doors could close at certain times of the day or year (on Remembrance Day?) to stop the heaviest rain from entering the sunken cenotaph. Umbrellas might be required when the rain is less heavy. The whole environment is symbolic and suggestive of war, where horrifying circumstances happened on beautiful spring days, surrounded by commonplace materials and regular people.
Look AliveTM Vertical Burials
The fifth idea we came up with is less related to landscape architecture and more of a process. Our death culture lays the dead to rest lying down. If you tip a casket up vertically, you can fit four times as many grave plots in the ground compared to conventional burials. The necessary round holes can be dug with an auger, avoiding the need for a cumbersome backhoe. This would reduce operating costs. What’s disconcerting for most people is the knowledge that people decomposing in a vertical casket (with their head up) would crumple inside their own casket. The decomposing body wouldn’t stay upright permanently, if at all.
The international shipping and packaging industry has the answer. Fragile or breakable products are boxed and then surrounded by polyurethane bags or sleeves. You break a seal that mixes two chemicals inside the bag, which causes the bags to expand and fill every void in the box—or, in our case, the casket. The polyurethane foam is like the gap filler used to install windows and doors or the foam used to keep rodents from void spaces. The bags could be made from corn; foam developments will provide more eco-friendly options. Or regular polyurethane foam could be chosen as an alternative to copper, brass, or stainless-steel caskets. The foam itself could be the preserving cocoon that some people find comforting. It would create a modern sort of mummification. Either way, our proposed process could hold the deceased body in an upright position.
This is understandably quite radical and possibly even upsetting to some people. Our process is proposed to offer options. Like the functional inventions proposed for our other case study sites, our design philosophy treats function as something demanded, not received. Our working methodology centres on speculations, proposing logical versions of ideas that no one has experienced.
Super Short Sentences
D’Arcy
Burial and cremation are bogged down by tradition. So is the design of cenotaph memorials. Everyone is different, so why can’t cemeteries be a place of obvious and eclectic differences and tastes?
Kelsey
A lively approach to storing the dead.
Jonny
Background: Bursting at the seams but calming and typical.
Re-jigging the final resting place for Sunshine Coast residents that’s intended to be uplifting and efficient as opposed to solemn and sprawling.
Jesse
How can we poetically accommodate the increased demand for space at the cemetery?
Alex
Practical solutions for after-death storage to solve the Sunshine Coast’s dwindling burial plot availability.
Mary
How does the living deal with the dead? The Seaview Cemetery rethinks the socio-cultural context, pragmatics, rituals, and meaning of burials.
Shane
Seaview Cemetery project asks what if cemeteries were scary?
Breana
Instead of the rural community’s residents being buried, what if they were laid to rest in the same way urban dwellers live?
This exploration is part of an ongoing speculative project that began as doctoral research. The collaborative case studies test ideas that will inform future built work. A new design methodology using unconventional techniques explores how to delay aesthetics and form in a search for utility-driven, human-focused projects. Architecture’s status quo is questioned through an optimistic but contrarian lens.
