istanbul
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An Everyday Landscape: Life and DeathTRANSCRIPT
ISTANBUL
AN EVERYDAY LANDSCAPE: LIFE AND DEATH
ASHLEY BALLLEEDS METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
BA (HONS) ARCHITECTURE
"We created you from it, and return you into it, and from it we will raise you a second time", surah 20:55, Qur'an
“The Turkish cemetery stretches along the slope of the hill behind the barrack, and descends far into the valley. Its thickly-planted cypresses form a dense shade, beneath which the tall head-stones gleam out white and ghastly. The grove is intersected by footpaths, and here and there a green glade lets in the sunshine, to glitter upon many a gilded tomb. Plunge into the thick darkness of the more covered spots, and for a moment you will almost think that you stand amid the ruins of some devastated city. You are surrounded by what appears for an instant to be the myriad fragments of some mighty whole; but the gloom has deceived you—you are in the midst of a Necropolis”,a City of the Dead.
Traces left behind by the passage of time allows a sympathetic awareness to the history of transience. By accepting a decaying time frame, does the quotidian become beautiful?
The rituals of the everyday become a framework of patterns; with the constant repetitive notion of the event.
This constant repeat of events creates a transient narrative between what once was, what is, and what could be.
With the population of Istanbul increasing at a rapid rate, land becomes a premium. Is Istanbul equipped to deal with the consequences of an increasing population and growing urban density?
Can there be a solution to the increasing need for burial space?
Design Narrative
Mapping: Night
This mapping exercise was filmed at nightime in order to create the light exposures required for the photographs.
The sites in Istanbul within the Beyoglu area were connected by this mapping route where we photographed the strip of light running through all sites as a connecting feature. Each site was dictated by candlelight.
Playing alongside this on the film is the process undertaken to create the photographs. Some sites took 40minutes to get the desired shot.
Mapping Beyoglu
Film: Why Remember Me All of a Sudden?
The film is about duality - a parallel, a paradox.
Existing film representations have been edited to create a new interweaving narrative.
The film explores the identity of Istanbul and how it has been portrayed from internal sources. A communal feeling of melancholy, nostalgia and loss compose the concept of huzun. But this goes deeper.
Be patient, listen...
Bleak, quiet and neglected occurances build up this universally accepted cultural emotion. The film begins with a sombre notion ‘drink to death’, within which is an undertone of hope and desire.
Walking through a colourless landscape, protests, neglected buildings all come together to create an image of the everyday notion of living in Istanbul.
In dichotomy to this, the second film contrasts against the first. This time collating external representations of Istanbul. The main rule for the film was to embrace the legacy of Capital of Culture 2010. It investigates a possible cultural shift required to appeal to a Western society, namely the tourist. By highlighting what Istanbul has to offer, does it lose its original sensitivity?
A new injection of artistic interventions, combined with consumerisation and tourist spots has shifted Istanbul from an outsider of the EU into a possible contender.
This film has many deeper dualities, some of which may be misinformed which is important to recognise.
The intertwining of images, movement, sounds, and poetry builds up a mixture of identities. But does Istanbul have its own identity, or is it shifting?
Why remember me all of a sudden?
Istanbul Research Film
Film stills: Film length 13 mins 11 secs
Films used: -Uzak-Crossing the Bridge-Edge of Heaven-Capital of Culture advertisements-Youtube documentaries
Site Response: Ritualistic Device
The act of making a device allows one the necessary time to understand materials and connections between materials and their surroundings.
According to Peter Slater, ‘Economy of Means’ is the practice of experiments - making the significant from the insignificant.
Developing the notion of a ritual, a ‘ritualistic device’ was conceived on site by using redundant objects discarded by their owners.
By lighting this device, smoke began to emulate the idea of a repeated action. Smoke has many religious connotations to do with purification and contemplation, which seemed fitting on the site overlooking a Mosque below.
Walking around the ruins with this device allowed one to become aware of the exisiting structure by observing the smoke rise through openings in the roof.
Externally this created intrigue as smoke seemed to rise from the ground, as the Hamam ruins were overgrown with vegetation.
Ceremonial Device
Ritualistic Device
The act of repetition through action and motion creates a religious connotation. The device is much like a thurible used in religious ceremonies to distribute incense.
Ordinary everyday activities may be redefined by removing them from their ordinary settings. For example, the device would have different responses in a busy street, as opposed to an art gallery.
Ritualistic Device
Architecture Response
The repetition of events in the everyday became evident when visiting Istanbul.
The process of Wuzu encompases the concept of ‘events’ becoming a ritual by the action and repeat of the action. Wuzu is the process of washing before prayer, which is repeated five times a day.
Following of from the stop motion explorations, the framing of each movement becomes visible in this piece.
Architectural Response
Istanbul
Beyoglu
SiteISTANBUL
Location
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Urban Sprawl
It is clear to see from the maps that the purple (highlighting population) shows the population of Istanbul increasing at a rapid rate. This results in a mega-city whose population is around 12 million to date, meaning the urban density increases and increases, What happens to green open space? Is Istanbul equipped to dealing with this rapid increase of population?
Urban Sprawl
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1990
2010
A City of the Dead
The text describes an ancient cemetery that once stretched from Istanbul Modern up to Taksim Square. This narrative creates the necessary poetics and starting point for the design.
As the chosen site is located within this setting, the idea of burial manifests.
The description portrays open green space which today is quickly diminishing due to popultion increase in Istanbul. However, the requirement for green space is not diminishing, Infact, as part of Capital of Culture 2010, one of the aims is to inject more open green space into the city to break down the urban density.
These two needs, the need of the living, and the need of the dead questions can one be combined with the other?
Narrative
Experimental Film
The experimental Super 8 film, was created during the trip to Istanbul to examine a response to a cultural mentality of longing , known as ‘Huzun’. This helps to portray a melancholic feeling which expresses the word melancholy in a slightly different manner.
The intrigue of this film works on two levels. The quality of the film, and the narrative of the film.
Firstly, the quality of Super 8 brings with it nostalgic memories due to the qualities representative of 1960/70s film. When filming, I was unsure if the camera and film actually worked. Each moment a scene was recorded, that moment seemed to be highlighted in detail within my memory, as it was unclear whether this moment would actually be recorded onto the experimental film. This trying to record a moment, set against an awareness that the moment may not actually be recorded, set in a deep melancholy of that ordinary moment. The physical action of trying to preserve a scene, made me aware that the scene may simply pass by and never be witnessed again. This quality set these ordinary moments into one of memory and potential loss.
The narrative of the film merely set about to document everyday scenes within Istanbul, from traffic passaging by, a man sitting reflecting, the ritual of wuzu before prayer.
This ordinary narrative set against the quality of the Super 8 evokes this feeling of melancholy. Some scenes can be seen clearly, whereas some are over exposed to light with bare understanding of what scene was happening. These broken moments add to this sense of Huzun.
In this sense of the word, melancholy is used to describe a way of living which is engrained into the culture. It is not a negative melancholic feeling, but a poetic inner feeling. Can this shift in meaning help one to experience the everyday in a new way?
Super 8 Film
Hamam Ritual
The act of cleansing was highly evident throughout Istanbul. Washing five times a day, washing as part of ceremonies, cleaning markets down at the end of the day ready for a new day create this repetative notion within the city.
Cleansing in the hamam is a well known Turkish tradition.
The one thousand year old ruined hamam on the site was the initial draw, providing a potential for a narrative interpretation.
Hamam Ritual
Funeral Ritual
Cleansing is also a major part of the funeral process.
In a Muslim funeral it is up to the immediate family to prepare the body for burial. The deceased in cleaned an odd number of times, and then wrapped in a linen cloth.
Throughout the whole process, the Qu’ran is read out loud, while the family mourn for the dead.
Family carry the enshrouded body to the burial space where it is buried straight into the earth without a coffin or casket. Then three handfuls of soil are thrown over the body while resiting the funeral prayer.
Dead is understood in Islam as Allah will, when one’s time is up, Allah will decide.
Gravestones are usually limited to 30cm above the ground, and a single flower is laid, just the way Mohammad was buried.
Traditionally, Turkish coffee is served after the funeral.
Funeral Ritual
Coffee Ritual Installation
This installation explores the act of rituals in the everyday using smell as a primary sense.
The overwhelming combinations of aromas in Istanbul create a distinct memory of place.
Coffee is an example of an everyday ritual which may be overlooked. The warmth and excitement involved in this process was very appealing.
The installation comprises of fifteen coffee cups imported from Turkey, surrounded by four motions of the act of pouring coffee.
It was taken further in the exploration of ritual, but everyday emptying the contents of the cups and refilling each cup with a new refill of coffee. In this sense the event became a performance piece, much like the everyday action of pouring and drinking coffee.
Drinking coffee at the funereal memorial has its own ritual and a funeral grief index system, which is based on the assumption that the amount of sugar added to your coffee could indicate how much grief you may or may not have; if your coffee is Sadah, (black without sugar), this registers a higher grief index, Mazboutah (just the right amount of sugar) registers some grief, or sukar zeyadah (extra sugar), denotes hardily any grief registered, and you just tagged along with a friend because you had nothing else to do. If you are overwhelmed by the grief make sure that you politely turn down the coffee offer altogether.
Coffee Ritual
Creating a poetic process within the funeral process. Here the body is raised up towards the light.
It is raised through a collection of hanging objects which hold memories.
This memory bank provides a space where memories can be retained. The passage of the body will leave behind a single item for the object collection. To the funeral goers this space will be a fundamental passage from the living to the dead. To the ordinary public, this space may act as a museum of historical artifacts. This single ‘event’ has connotations both in life and death.
In Islam, it is understood that posessions cannot be taken with you, so they are distributed. The memory bank will collect one object from the deceased posessions.
Throughout the funeral ceremony, wildflower seeds may be dispersed into the landscape. This addressed the idea of transience. We as human beings are part of a natural cycle of events, this temporal nature suggests in death, there will be new life.
Similarly, wildflower will be on a continual cycle of transience, changing the landscape thoughout the seasons.
Cabinets of curiosities respond to human’s interest and fascination in objects and their histories.
They record time and patterns within that time.
Transience of Wildflower
Cabinet of Curiosity
Raising The Dead Through Memory
Found Exhibition
These objects are not wanted. They were all found discarded.
The questioning begins by evaluating the duality of use, ie: its past use and its potential new use:
1. What prompted one to throw these objects out?2. What prompted one towards these disused objects?
Everyday objects are overlooked, often worn is equalled to dead. A used object may have lost its use for the owner, especially if a new model is released. What happens if one embraces the melancholy of this death? Particularly in a Western society, the creation of beautiful objects from the outset develops a materialistic connotation.
This materialistic mindset is something that I fully reject; ‘when a thing is self consciously made to be beautiful, it never seems to work.’
If objects are created with their value preconceived, then a discovery into why this particular object has meaning or value will not be significant. This can be understood if one buys into a fashionable label as the object already holds a certain class value of beauty, purchasing objects for class gain or status removes any beauty of its essence.
I am in favour of discovering an object for its innate values which not everyone will see or understand, this beauty has to be discovered to be appreciated. ‘There is a power in the ordinary things of everyday…we only have to look at them long enough to see it’. Zumthor.
Traces left behind by the passage of time allows a sympathetic awareness to the history of transience. Some cycles of transience will return such as the transition from night and day, other remnants will never return.
All of the marks, finger prints, scratched signs of wear left behind offers so much mini-histories for narrative interpretation. ‘Thus these traces of time and use confer a superior degree of beauty upon things, one which transcends, quotidian beauty within an aesthetic of contemplation.’ There is a patina of age on every object, some more visible than others.
The object takes on a new dimension - it is not simply an inanimate object, one can feel and sense its deep history. The feeling of melancholy overwhelms, its history, the remnants of peoples touch, the imagination the object has been part of builds in this feeling of intrigue.
Found Objects
Grid Overlay System
The difficulties of having to plan and design on such an open site means a logical system is required. A system of overlaying a gemetric grid that relates to Islamic patterning is used
The grid is positioned by identifying main points of exisiting built fabric.The existing ruin of the haman forms the first point on the grid
The grid of shifted to align with both the haman and the exisiting Mosque opposite the site
The entrance to the road through the site forms the next position point
The difficulties of having to plan and design on such an open site means a logical system is required. A system of overlaying a gemetric grid that relates to Islamic patterning is used
The line of Mecca facing south east is positioned through each of the current node points. This is to determine an appropriate location for this line, which will act as the ceremonial walkway
Starting with the hamam which was the inital draw to the site, a hexagon is formed by the grid pattern, each corner acts as a new node point, in which a different event will be situated. This hexagon has been adjusted multiple times - addressing this level of appropriateness, identifying potential problems of each positioning
The grid will be lost due to the variation in topography. This is essential. The idea of patterning in a subtle way has been the approach here, meaning the geometric pattern will not be obvious when experiencing the architecture and surrounding landscape. This non literal approach is imperative to the integrity of the project
Grid Patterning System
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Barcelona Botanical Gardens, Carlos Ferrater
The Garden project employed a triangular grid structure fractured with concrete paths that adapt to the terrain. This grid provides the rigid system to arrange routes, construction and infrastructure, while the vegetation provides the natural flexibility to conceal the grid system.
When the grid is merged with the landscape, the grid becomes part of it, almost lost; ingrained. This element of the hidden grid used to dictate an initial layout is important to draw a connection to, although I believe the system can be taken further to lose the rigidity further. Rather than highlighting all of the grid system through routes, a selection can be highlighted, meaning the hidden routes may manifest as part of lines of sight rather than physical pathways.
1:500 Site Model
The model is a conceptual exploration into the connection points intended across the site.
The Mecca point of direction will form the central ceremonial walkway - which is expressed by the figures in a procession from one point to the next.
Continuing the theme of disused and found objects, each node point representing a built event, is shown by found guitar parts.
Site Model
Density of site - notice the sparsity - which is where the site is located
Road network
Green space around site
Mosques in immediate area
In the lead up to the burial towers thats are inverted into the landscape, the approach would be through the landscape on an angular walkway. This intersection of the landscape would create grooves into the earth making suggestions of movement into the ground.
From above, the circular towers may not be visible by the users of the landscape, but the grooves on the landscape below them will be visible, suggesting some kind of activity happening below their feet.
A new platform can be installed through the landscape - making reference to the existing landscape by forcing a platform unit through it so that the landscape becomes built up around the viewers on this platform.
A distinct difference in material would be used for this platform unit, such as corten steel.
A walkway from the memory tower over to the landscape above can cut through the landscape creating a new opening into the landscape. This cut will also be a directional cut alluding to the original patterning system used to position the events across the site.
This model explores the multiple routes which all connect back to the central ceremonial walkway. These routes help to dictate the pattern originally employed. As it has become abstracted, the pattern is not directly obvious.
Site Model
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Ceremonial SectionThe Muslim funeral process as a ritual within the everyday landscape of Istanbul
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Nusretiye Mosque
Perforated viewing tower> meeting place for family to gather at start of funeral ceremony
Main Road, Meclis-i Mebusan Cd
Memory Tower> collection of hanging objects of the dead> as part of the funeral process, the body arrives from the Hamam, and the body is raised up through the memories
Ceremonial Walkway> intersecting the landscape
Burial Towers> inverted towers in the landscape where bodies are buried> each level holds twenty-four bodies> the Burial Towers are understood externally as Wildlife Towers
Ceremonial Walkway> family carry object of the deceased into the Memory Tower
Ceremonial SectionThe Muslim funeral process as a ritual within the everyday landscape of Istanbul
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Nusretiye Mosque
Perforated viewing tower> meeting place for family to gather at start of funeral ceremony
Main Road, Meclis-i Mebusan Cd
Memory Tower> collection of hanging objects of the dead> as part of the funeral process, the body arrives from the Hamam, and the body is raised up through the memories
Ceremonial Walkway> intersecting the landscape
Burial Towers> inverted towers in the landscape where bodies are buried> each level holds twenty-four bodies> the Burial Towers are understood externally as Wildlife Towers
Ceremonial Walkway> family carry object of the deceased into the Memory Tower
Plan
1. Nusretiye Mosque meeting place for family members at the start of the funeral procession
2. Viewing Tower family members make their way up through the semi exposed patterned tower towards the Ceremonial Walkway
3. Ceremonial Walkway the act of ritual carrying an object of the deceased, taken to the Memory Tower
4. Memory Tower the family gather here to reflect on the memories of the dead, awaiting arrival of the body
5. Ruined Hamam immediate family members cleanse the body before burial, connotations of memory and loss within the ruined Hamam; intimate procession through water garden and toward the Memory Tower through a sunken pathway
6. Body Raised body raised up towards the light through the hanging objects, symbolising memories
8. Burial Towers burial of body; central light core to create ephemeral qualities; contemplative seating area; all bodies face Mecca
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Plan
1. Nusretiye Mosque
2. Viewing Tower family members make their way up through the semi exposed patterned tower towards the Ceremonial Walkway
3. Ceremonial Walkway the act of ritual carrying an object of the deceased, taken to the Memory Tower
4. 4. Memory Tower the family gather here to reflect on the memories of the dead, second level acts as ceremonial viewing level
5. Ruined Hamam
6. Body Raised body raised up towards the light through the hanging objects, symbolising memories
7. Ceremonial Walkway part two of the crossing, sloping down into the landscape
8. 8. Burial Towers burial of body; central light core to create ephemeral qualities; contemplative seating area; all bodies face Mecca
9. Wildlife Towers from surface level, the Burial Towers are read as Wildlife Towers - stone volumes with crevices for new life to nest - a constant transience
10. Flower Preparation Area/ Outdoor Stall Units concrete cast units selling flowers within the landscape
11. Viewing Platform views looking back over the city - solitude within a city of intense ritual
12. Wildflower Meadows as part of the funeral ritual, guests are encouraged to scatter wildflower over the landscape - natural transience of life and death - a landscape in constant flux
13. Ceremonial Path difference in surface and the shadow of cypress trees guides the funeral crowd towards the Banquet Hall
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Plan
1. Nusretiye Mosque
2. Viewing Tower highest level acts as the viewing platform over the Bosphorous
3. Ceremonial Walkway
4. Memory Tower the family gather here to reflect on the memories of the dead, second level acts as ceremonial viewing level
5. Ruined Hamam
6. Body Raised body raised up towards the light through the hanging objects, symbolising memories
7. Ceremonial Walkway part two of the crossing, sloping down into the landscape
9. Wildlife Towers from surface level, the Burial Towers are read as Wildlife Towers - stone volumes with crevices for new life to nest - a constant transience
10. Flower Shop road level flower shop; grows additional flowers in landscape
11. Viewing Platform views looking back over the city - solitude within a city of intense ritual
12. Wildflower Meadows as part of the funeral ritual, guests are encouraged to scatter wildflower over the landscape - natural transience of life and death - a landscape in constant flux
13. 13. Ceremonial Path difference in surface and the shadow of cypress trees guides the funeral crowd towards the Banquet Hall
14. Banquet Hall guests gather to celebrate the life of the dead over food and drinks, overlooking the Bosphorus
15. End of Ceremony the guests walk up the sloping path to the highest level of the landscape, up to the light for a final time before departing back to the everyday
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Arrival of the dead body with immediate family members
Body layed in the centre of the ruined hamam, directly under the central roof light
Sliding glass doors
Roof overgrown, kept as existing
Body washed, prepared, and wrapped in white linen cloth
Seating area in room two for prayers and other family members to wait
Water garden
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Cleansing at the Hamam
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Route on entry to ruined hamam to wash deceased body, following on towards Tower
Funeral circulation - including cleansing at hamam, viewing platform by Mosque, Tower and the main node being the ceremonial walkway linking the whole process over to the burial towers
The Viewing Tower marks the beginning of the funeral ceremony. It sits adjacent to the exisiting Nusretiye Mosque, forming a new dialogue with the existing minarets.
Designed on the hexagon patterning system, this is the only visible patterned element of the scheme, appropriate due to its relationship with the Mosque. It marks the beginning to the pattern system set across the landscape.
The facade addresses the function within. Below is clad in oak shingle - a visual connector to the following buildings as part of the funeral ceremony. The top half if clad in a perforated steel patterned panel, with its patina developing with the weather conditions over time, slowly intensifying its hue. The internal spaces become semi exposed to the elements through the perforations.
The top element becomes the viewing platform out over the sea, a reflection on the process of life and death.
Viewing Tower
Nusretiye Mosque
Viewing platform over the Bosphorus
Timber platform structure
Perforated steel cladding - semi exposed, with patina coating
Picture window towards the Bosphorus
Seating
Ceremonial Platform area, onto the Ceremonial Walkway
Oak shingle cladding
Stair circulation in clockwise direction, lift access centrally
Entrance to hexagonal Viewing Tower from Mosque
Steilneset Memorial, Norway, Peter Zumthor and Louise Bourgeois
The first structure comprises a pine scaffolding framework, inside which is a suspended fabric cocoon containing a long oak-floored corridor.
The particular interest within this structure is the repetative framework, which creates a delicate skeleton for one to walk through. The act of passing this framework evokes the passage of time, and connecting back to the repetive nature of the everyday. This repetativeness creates a ritual of passing.
(right) As the family walk through the Ceremonial Walkway, they carry with them an object of the deceased, an offering for the Memory Tower at the other end of this walkway.
Ceremonial Walkway
Brockholes Nature Reserve, Preston, Adam Khan
The language of these build forms appears as if they have grown organically out of the surrounding water. They for a natural typology connecting multiple forms together.
Kahn worked with natural materials. The high steep roofs are clad with rough tiles made out of tree stumps, which would otherwise be burned as waste. Gutters are in copper (long-life, recyclable), and the oak roofs change colour with the weather. Inside the cafe is insulated with newspaper. The primary construction is expressed through gluelam timber beams angled toward the single rooflight.
(right) Internally the Memory Tower develops a similar construction. Gluelam beams are braced in a geometric triangular lattice structure, progressing the initial grid system into the built form. Each level is tied back to the frame at appropriate junctions, disgusing the bracket plates between the gluelam formation.
Two facades remain perpendicular to the ground, leaving the remaining facades to negotiate their slope gradually up towards the singular roof light.
From a distance, the Tower externally will sit as a dominant structure within the landscape, however, on closer inspection the subtleties will be realised with the oak shingle revealing its delicate nature.
Memory Tower
Storage area for excess objects/ historical collections
Workshop area to maintain/ repair damaged objects
Point of entrance from Ceremonial Walkway
Table where body is placed, ready to be raised upwards
Reception desk acts as control for the Memory Tower facility.
Public entrance through glass doors
Cross laminated timber beams, in grid pattern
Viewing platform one
Hanging objects of deceased
Ceremonial platform for family to watch the body be raised
Dead body raising through memories
Vertical lift and stair circulation - narrow, dark space before entering into the light filled volume of the tower
Pulley system
Mechancial cog system to raise the body
Series of horn speakers to emit sound of the cogs externally across the landscape - indicating the funeral ritual is taking place
Top platform level where machinery is visible
Oak shingle cladding - creating a dominant volume in the landscape, with delicate materiality in close view - weathers over time emphasising concept of transience
Roof light angled northwards for consistency of light
Speaker horns - also creating a statement against the backdrop of the minaret towers across the city
Insulation with a lime render internally
Central Void within Memory Tower
This cast plaster model investigates a potential volume of the tower unit. It will consist of one large central void leading up to a single roof light. Its angle is dictated by the initial grid positioning, but also the angle of the current slope where it is located.
The subtle angle created by these volumes will create a connection in the landscape by these similar volumes.
The wire expressed the pathways that link from and tower unit - exposing the pattern system slightly.
(right) View within the framework of the central void, with the mechanics of the pulley system and the speakers emmitting the sounds of the mechanical movement over the landscape.
This part of the Ceremonial Walkway becomes exposed to the elements before entering the landscape. This threshold is emphasised by a stone opening into the landscape, to provide the reveal. From the landscape above, this reveal will not be visible, creating intrigue as to where this walkway goes to.
It also offers a performance in the landscape. The ritual of carrying the coffin along this walkway and down into the landscape marks this as an everyday event; death simply happens. Passers by who use the landscape for other purposes may see this event happening, it is not meant to be a macarbre activity, instead it reinforces the mix of activities within the everyday landscape.
Ceremonial Walkway
Ceremonial walkway provides the link between the Mosque and the landscape, changing from an enclosed walkway into an exposed walkway past the Memory Tower
The inverted Burial Tower works on two parallels, the funeral process, and the everyday.
The Tower meets the ground being described from above as a stone wall with multiple crevices which are designed to attract wildlife to nest. These stone walls resemble the hamam ruins on the landscape below, creating a circular typology throughout the landscape.
Central to this wall is located a vertical cone like rammed earth void, decorated with similar crevices to the stone wall above. This void serves two main purposes, a wildlife tower, with the poetics of which expressing new life to come as birds fly in and out of the landscape. The second purpose is as a natural light well serving the burial chambers below.
When first built, the five Burial Towers will be installed in the same period, only opening up as demand requires. This allows time for the crevices within the towers to establish with wildlife, developing local biodiversity.
The Burial Tower itself sits below the surface extending to six levels. Each chamber contains twenty four bodies, twelve on each side divided onto three levels. Each body is placed into the precast unit with their right side facing Mecca. The design of the Tower follows this principle, allowing servicing and seating to take place on the two quadrants not containing bodies. Central to each chamber is the light void where natural light floods into the ephemeral space.
Burial Tower
Rammed earth walls -the earth removed to construct the tower in re-used as the primary construction type, evoking the concept of memory of what once was.
Wildlife Towers sit in the landscape - expressing the journey from death and up to new life
Crevices within the stonework of the Wildlife Towers allow for a local habitat to establish
Each level contains eight bodies stacked three times, twenty-four per level. All bodies have their right side facing Mecca
Circulation runs vertically in the form of stairs and a lift
Central core provides natural light into the burial tower
Access chamber for potential rubbish or excess rainwater that may otherwise fill up the central core
Central core is artificially lit from below, at night time an ephemeral glow will be revealed across the landscape
Precast burial units are prepared during rammed earth construction - once filled there will be a plaque placed over the burial unit.
Between each floor, a thicker ledge stretches out to stabilize the burial design. Beynd this is earth, meaning the bodies are placed within a burial unit beyond which is earth This way, each body is essentially buried into the earth as required by Islamic tradition.
Banquet hall - long communal tables - table service
Slope entrance/ exit
Cypress trees mark the end of the process
Water pool
Rooftop landscape
Reception
Path in the landscape
Picture window looking out towards the city
Kitchen
Delivery entrance
Cold store area
Services room
Male toilets
Female toilets
Ceremonial Path into Banquet Hall
Waiting area
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Banquet Hall
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(above) view out over the landscape toward the sea
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Flower Kiosk, Malmo Cemetery, Sigurd Lewerentz
The rawness and honesty created by this everyday flowershop makes a statement, one which has the same effect as a silent space, allowing one awareness to become heightened.
The kiosk displays beautiful details, particularly the connection between the concrete facade and the unframed window.
(right) A creation of smaller humble elements like Lewerentz’ kiosk around the landscape will provide an experience of subtleties. To an everyday passerby, the flowershop sits into the landscape like it has always been there, naturally growing with the elements. The timber shingles greying with the passage of time. To the funeral goer, the flowershop provides a sympathetic awareness to time, with the delicate nature of the weathering materials offering a comfort and solace. The material pallette is visibly connected to the pervious ceremonial buildings offering it as a continued destination.
Flower Shop
Flower shop to the Burial spaces
Flower shop to the burial cores
Entrance into landscape and viewing/ seating area
"We created you from it, and return you into it, and from it we will raise you a second time", Surah 20:55, Qur'an
