How does one create a sacred, caring and hopeful place for many generations, in a place that today is an ordinary field? The strategy of this project is to use the static characteristics of the site, while temporary and cyclical elements (such as vegetation) are left untouched and given a fixed point; a permament frame structure. The slight slope of about 5.5 meters found on the site’s west side is the most static element on the site and thus the starting-point for the entire project. The building is therefore placed by the woods where the hill is most noticeable.
With the ambition to create a sacred place for all deceased and grievers undependent of their beliefs, permanence and weight are leading themes. The dignity of a heavy, pure structure provides an atmosphere of stability and security that is clear enough to serve as the framework for many types of ceremonies.
The building’s functions are divided into two flows. The first is the crematorium flow, where the rooms are placed strictly after the functional process. The visitor’s flow is more dynamic because of the large variation of destinations the vistior can have. Therefore this flow runs outdoors through a series of courtyards, along which the various functions (including the crematorium, which is open to visitiors) are placed like pearls on a string. The many sacred rooms all have the same importance without an internal hierarchy, but still differ from each other spatially. The courtyards are the sacred common spaces for the visitors, who despite their different final destinations in the building have one thing in common; they all have lost someone.
Unlike the adjacent church which leans upwards towards heaven, the new building sinks heavily into the soil and creates calm courtyards that embraces the visitor. The human body becomes one with the earth when it dies and so does the building. The structure is pushed into the hill, cracked in two forming two volumes bound together inside the hill, with three courtyards between them. Windows and openings are only found on the facades towards the courtyards and on the roof of the building, leaving the outer facades completely closed as they stand, heavy in the landscape.
The building is a solid masonry construction of chiseled granite from Bjärlöv, 15 km north of the site. The stones are layed in a random bond which gives a slight horizontal pattern. To mark the position of the sacred rooms’ placement inside the structure, the stones’ depths are varied in these places, creating a relief on the facades.
The landscape strategy is simple and straight forward. A mixture of grasses and wild flowers are seeded on the field, slowly creating a meadow. The stone-paved paths to and from the building follow the landscape’s movements. The building and the landscape are two contrasting elements that are enhanced, staged and given a sacral quality by being put together.
The visitor reches the building by following a path that runs from the existing cemetery out across the meadow, towards the building’s clock tower and into the Entrance courtyard. In this grass courtyard the grass weaves in between the stones in the paved paths. The stone paving drops into a large pond which collects rainwater from all roofs. From a sunny colonnade with seats to the south, the visitor can watch the treetops waving behind the walls. To reach the chapel and it’s small waiting courtyyard, the visitor passes up a narrow stair to the next level. By getting the walls really close, the contrast between the wide open and the narrow is enhanced; compress and release. One level up in the waiting yard, the stone-paving becomes dominant and the green elements are now found in the cracks and on the chapel facade. The visitor passes into or along the chapel and reaches the Sun courtyard. Here the visitor is almost in level with the surrounding landscape. The forest opens up into a clearing that lets the sun beam down, reminding the visitor of being alive.
The visitor takes the final steps up to the top of the hill casting a long view down through the courtyards with the clock tower as distant focal point. Long views of the landscape opens up as the visitor follows a path along the embankment and the woods towards the assembly hall for some coffee, or down on a winding path across the meadow back to life.
CV
EDUCATION:
2012 - Master of Architecture, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation,
School of Architecture, Department 10. Grade 12 / 12
2009 - Exchange student at Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland
2009 - Bachelor of Architecture, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation,
School of Architecture, Department 10. Grade 12 / 12
2005 - Cultural sciences, University of Lund
WORK EXPERIENCE:
2010 - Internship at Adept Architects, Copenhagen
2010 - Architectural Assistant at Groves-Raines Conservation Architects, Edinburgh
2009 - Internship at Powerhouse Company, Copenhagen
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