Original

Every moment in our lives has been walking towards death since we were born. Knowing the fact that our family and friends will eventually leave us one day, we should hold on to an idea-“Death is the beginning of a brand new start.” We should embrace sadness with sunlight inside our hearts, instead of being drowned in the darkness of sorrow. So, we have introduced gentle light into the vertical grave we design, which sounds like a solemn and sorrowful place, in order to make people in this space feel the warmth within cruelness, and be brave to face death itself, since we are all BORN TO DIE. We have divided our space into four big sections- the Underground Morgue, the Service Hall, the Vertical Cemetery, and the Farewell Hall. The Service Hall: This is the place where the families of the dead can handle funeral business. The light comes through the irregularly arranged sky windows in the ceiling, which is the main light source of the Service Hall. The light inside this space is soft and misty. Sunlight can be buffered by the narrow-to-board shaped sky window instead of shooting directly into the space. The Vertical Cemetery: This is the dominating part of the building. The families of the dead can mourn in these separated tomb spaces. In order to create an atmosphere of solemn and quiet, we use direct light that comes in through a hole in the sloping ceiling, which can introduce the light directly onto the tombstone. The tombs are arranged in ladder pattern, and the inner space are divided in order to introduce the flow of the light. The Farewell Hall: As the place where connect the dead and the families, we have left a lot of spare spaces for people to walk free. There are two floors in the Farewell Hall, the lower floor is used to place coffins and mourn. The coffins are surrounded by the light most of the times, which create an atmosphere of solemn an warm. The upper floor is the nearest place to the sky, which can comfort the families after mourning. The whole Vertical Cemetery is led by a regular light pattern. From bottom to the top, the light goes from weak to strong, the upper it goes, the more distinct the light becomes. From the point of view of the families’ traffic flow, they can feel the light changes from blur to distinct, which can also change their feelings from sad to being more positive in the face of death and farewell.