[after]CARE
I have evolved to frame architecture as a speculative vehicle, not solely concerned with problem solving, but also asking questions. For me, an emerging role of the architect is to use architecture as an apparatus of inquiry, even when the answer is elusive.
[after]Life examines pre- and post-mortem processes and their spatial and metaphysical interactions as parts of a broader system. My project poses the question of an alternate burial method, utilizing human composting as an instrument for questioning ecological and societal norms, creating a speculative system of death infrastructure.
I approached the project as a node embedded within the larger infrastructural processes, rather than only facilitating them, aiming to create a form of civic and ecological infrastructure, exploring issues of age and pollution within St. Cuthberts garden village and the wider Eden catchment area.
The project monumentalizes an alternate burial method, utilizing human composting as an instrument for questioning ecological and societal norms, creating a speculative system of death infrastructure.
The end-of-life care centre, wetland and human composting mausoleum are conceived as both physical and metaphysical monuments, to the people of the new garden village, and those who will die there.
The wetland system is a passive phosphorus sink, helping deal with agricultural pollution, creating habitats along the river eden corridor and providing exposure to a dying habitat, becoming a connecting node within the catchment area. The care centre provides necessary facilities and infrastructure to Carlisle’s rapidly aging population, while the mausoleum presents human composting as a viable, eco-friendly alternative to traditional methods of burial.
the architecture is imagined as an embedded, unassuming process, with natural landscaping and public pavilions above ground, with some remnants of the mausoleum growing out of the ground. This becomes the monumental aspect of the project, with it being understood as a process, or an acknowledgment of it, and the subsequent interactions.
