Landscape Architecture
The Eternal Forest
We are born from the earth and descend back into it in death. All life was created in the stars, the very hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen atoms that make up our human bodies were all created in the Big Bang, guiding us to be born from the elements of the earth and evolve into the mammals we are today. When we pass on we descend back into the earth in whatever way we choose, whether in ashes or buried whole. Or perhaps, be given a new form of life in the roots of trees grown into towering forests, to live on in this world through the very form that brought us here.
The Forrest of Life is a solution to London's declining burial occupancy while increasing the city's green-space capacity and replacing the morbid climate of disintegrating graveyards with a bright enchanting forest, gleaming with the aura of new life. Bio-urns are a new green way to live on after death in which a seed and soil are placed within a biodegradable urn to grow new life from death into lush forests of our passed loved ones.
Site Analysis
St. Pauls Churchyard was observed and analysed through the lens of 'natural processes'. In which the cyclical process of life and death were exemplified in oxidization, moss growth, funeral processions, deciduous trees, rust, and erosion.
Bio Urn Burial Concept
The seed germinates in the top capsule separate from ashes. The growing tree roots will become strong enough to connect with the ashes as the urn begins to decompose becoming apart of the soil. The urns are to be buried within the formation of the landscape layout of a triquetra formed by paths and greenspace.
The Procession
Attendees will be able to visit their ancestors in a bright uplifting atmosphere, to breath the very oxygen their tree is producing, to feel the touch of a loved ones new physical form and feel their presence live on. From death grows life, our journey in this world does not end in our last breath but can continues on in a rebirth of nature from the earth that gave us our first life.