THE ICE SHIP by leonardo zuccaro marchi from italy

The Ice Ship

The project considers burial as the last voyage into nature. The project consists in an artificial iceberg where the coffins or the urns are inserted. The iceberg will travel across the ocean with no fixed route. While the ice melts, the urns or coffins will sink into the sea and lay on an undetermined point of the sea bed for all eternity.

The artificial iceberg is made up of an artificial floating structure substituting the enormous mass of ice under sea level which usually raises and supports the top of a natural iceberg.
The top of the iceberg is laid on the floating structure and it is composed of blocks of ice which are carved in order to give a natural organic shape. The coffins are arranged inside in a geometric grid; their black colour and geometric arrangement contrast with the organic natural form of the iceberg.
The final ice ship is 12-15 metres long and 3-4 metres high, and is made up of 90-100 m3 of ice.

The project takes its inspiration from the utopian military project “Habbakuk", an unsinkable aircraft carrier made of ice and Pykrete (ice + sawdust), proposed by the British during World War II.
From war to burials, the ice ship proposes a novel and interesting synergy between natural and artificial elements which transforms and reconstructs the concept of burial as the last voyage into nature.