Vertical Cemetery

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‘connecting the life and death, and disconnecting the living and dead...’

In the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, the design aims to develop a proposal for a vertical cemetery that explores the relationship between life and death within the city. The need to examine this condition provide the opportunity to not just efficiently respond to the issue of space but also look into the cultural identity that this solemn program can project within its environment.

What happens when there is no more room for the dead? This is a problem being faced today by many major cities across the globe that are struggling to find space and are confronted with rising urban costs.

Dissolves in the city- transiting from the west and east, old and new...

The site under study is situated at an intersection of Shinjuku’s many components. At the edge of the Kabukicho district, the site sits in close visual proximity to the towering skyscraper district. The site affords a few edges yet freely opens up for interpretation on most fronts. It also has prominent visual access from multiple locations in the vicinity, especially along the large promenade of Yasukuni Dori.
It is a problem that has put death on the map as a lucrative business- a realization that, when not treated correctly, can lead to many problems for cities and their inhabitants. So for both morphologically and programmatically, we have combined the facade typologies from both west and east to dissolve the cemetery between them.

Under such complex urban and social context at Shinjiku, construction of urban cemetery is doomed to the rejections of local residents. But to solve the saturation problem, the cemetery has to be continued and self-sustained in long term. Hence, considering it as an architecture of permanence, it is of prime essence to dissolve it in the current urban fabric.

‘Reincarnation from the past to the future...’

Relationships between old and new, life and death, heaven and earth, past and future were expressed in the design. Morphologically, we have combined the facade typologies from both west and east of Shinjuku to dissolve the cemetery into current fabric. To create an intermediate space connecting the life and death, and disconnecting the living and dead, the glass box defines their boundary. In addition, a bottom up circulation system is to mimic the linkage from earth to heaven. In prime essence, the plugin system and the decomposable urn with tree burial system allow regeneration of the cemetery.