Architecture and Death: Besides, it is always other people who die...

A project that uses as its starting point the fact that death is inevitable and that coming to grips with one's mortality is an essential part of living an authentic life. Such an exploration is important at any stage of life but becomes increasingly poignant as one ages and approaches their own ends.

Many philosophers believe that in order to live an authentic and free life one must come to terms with their mortality. In our everyday lives, however, it is all too easy to ignore these realities in exchange for a mindset that "it is always other people who die" (written on Duchamp's headstone and ironically highlighting the very flaw in that thinking). Taking these two divergent mindsets as the starting point of our design exploration, this project repurposes an existing structure into a transitional home for an aging population, that far from shunning the end of life, as is often the case in such facilities, provides places and opportunities, both communal and secluded, for individuals to contemplate their past, present and future. Instead of a clear and linear arrangement of spaces, this project capitalizes on the idea of uncertainty as a way of making space that can challenge an individual both physically and emotionally. Such an exploration of one's self is important at any stage of life but becomes increasingly poignant as one ages and approaches there own ends.

One benefit of the projects location, within a thriving university campus, is the potential for an individual's lifetime of knowledge to be passed on to both other residents as well as students within the university. Such an exchange could be seen as a form of debriefing, where one generation passes on its wisdom and life's lessons to a younger less experienced population. Such bonds, formed between generations, also highlight another fact of death; we learn about death by the passing of those we know. And by seeing the frailty of human life first hand, these relationships have the potential to instill in a new generation an understanding of death that leads them in the direction of living an authentic life of their own.

University of Pennsylvania: School of Design
Arch 701 Fall 2010

Mikael Avery and Alexandra VanOrsdale
Instructor: Matthias Hollwich

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• avery
• vanorsdale
• hollwich
• precycling
• recycling
• death
• spirituality
• architecture
• light
• aging
• nursing home