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Death is inevitable. Even so, very few people like to think about, talk about, or plan for it. Architecture students Dario Sabidussi and Yuxuan Xiong, both graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania, are exceptions. Amid the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic and ecological precarity, they have staked out wildly inventive rituals of remembrance and resilience through architecture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For an advanced design studio course in the spring of 2021, Sabidussi and his partner Diego Ramirez challenged common but environmentally disastrous practices like embalming and cremation while designing new spaces of mourning in New York\u2019s Central Park, their chosen site. But they had to address these concerns within the context of the studio\u2019s theme: theater design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA theater is supposed to be a space of vibrancy and life\u2014you leave feeling full of life; you\u2019re rejuvenated,\u201d Sabidussi explains. \u201cWe wanted to give that same respect to the dead. So we created a theater of life and a theater of death, [to] create a new kind of funerary tradition.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every aspect of the team\u2019s Seneca Growth Complex challenges business as usual in the death industry. Visitors remember their loved ones in the subterranean Theater of the Living, while researchers study ecological burial practices underfoot. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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SENECA GROWTH\nCOMPLEX (top) \nFuneral innovations, such as\nbiodegradable capsules that\nconvert bodies into fertilizer\nfor an arboretum, tie the\narchitecture of the Seneca\nGrowth Complex back\nto the death\u2013life cycle.\nDespite its otherworldly\ndesign, the students hit\nupon practical solutions\nlike using EPS Geofoam\nto create a natural stone\nlook underground without\nadding impossible stress to\nthe labyrinthine structure. \nLIGHTBRINGER (above)\nDuring the cremation\nprocess, the building\u2019s\nlighting element expands and\ncontracts to create a visual\nreminder of the life cycle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
Sabidussi\u2019s classmate Yuxuan Xiong also questioned traditional mourning rituals with Lightbringer, a belowground memorial between Hudson River piers 62 and 63. He and three classmates, Bolai Ren, Yiyi Luo, and Zhongming Fang, submitted a \u201creverse skyscraper\u201d to the eVolo Skyscraper Competition during the height of the pandemic. They didn\u2019t win, but their design did raise questions about ritual and remembrance in the context of COVID-19. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Lightbringer, mourners descend from street level down a spiral walk into a deep atrium to send off loved ones or visit cremains, while workers operate the crematorium. The furnaces\u2019 heat powers entangled strands of eye-grabbing optic fibers above, while river water churns through the structure, protecting it from floods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt the time, we were in a very hard situation where we couldn\u2019t have large gatherings,\u201d Xiong says. \u201cSo we thought it would be nice to have something that\u2019s large and can be seen from different angles, something that helps you think about the sort of memories that you want to cherish. This memorial sculpture allows people to heal.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n