The Archive by daniel reist from austria

This proposal for a death care facility is considered to be more than a cemetery. Regarding to contemporary needs this project provides opportunities to rethink not just the way how we plan cemeteries , also our burial rituals.
Our analyses showed that it would be possible to inherit the same amount of people of Arlington national cemetery in a spherical volume with a radius of 30 meters. This would be possible if people would be buried in urns instead of graves. Urns just need 0.4 m2 or less.
We went another step further. We rethought the purpose of the urn. In our project the physical body will be put in a biodegradable coffin.
Therefore the body gets prepared in the death care facility on top. Through this coffin a tree will grow - the body is given back to nature.

Special items items that remind you of your beloved which passed away are put in an urn. The urns, elements of a spherical entity underneath the ground, are able to be accounted in the ceremony space.
To emphasize these two steps of death care we put the preparation facility above the ground, the "flesh" will be given back to earth - the natural circle of life. Items that carry memories of our beloved ones are stored underneath in the spherical entity. This sphere is design to
create the atmosphere of a blurred boundary between life and the death. The corridor, the ceremony space and "the archive" are representing a spiritual journey of souls.
We used a similar architectural language like other sacral buildings. The visitor enters the building and is confronted with darkness, but as someone follows the corridor to the ceremony chamber (that is connected with "the archive") the space will be filled with more light.
Then you reach the ceremony space where you have a beautiful view into the archive space. This space has sky light that is concentrating the impression of this in-between space of life and death.

"Imagine you have a friend who passed away, and he had an affinity for good wine. So you store the best bottle of wine in this archive. Everytime you visit his urn, you open it and drink a little glas to remember the times when you were tasting wines togehter.