Honorable Mention
2018 Skyscraper Competition
GuoChao Deng, QingMing Xiao, Yuan Feng, Liwei Shen, Qin Xiong
China
Design background
As the population increases and the global aging accelerates, the cities with dense population are facing the problems of fewer graveyard resources. Japan is the country with the highest level of aging in the world. In Tokyo, the capital of Japan, the problem is even worse. Recent research shows that the average age in Tokyo is growing rapidly, with nearly 25% of people over the age of 65. At the same time, more and more rural young residents are coming to Tokyo, which exacerbated the scarcity of resources in Tokyo.
Meanwhile, the price of graveyard in Tokyo is so high that it costs more than 4,000 U.S. dollars per square meter, which is hard to bear for a Japanese citizen. As a result, most poor people cannot afford a graveyard to place their own relics and loved ones.
The significance of building vertical cemetery: to build a place of spiritual comfort for the living relatives
During the time we grown up, we were told the story about the people after death: their sprits rise to the sky, becoming a shining star. They are watching your life, your progress as well as your life-long career, which endow you the motivation to face the challenge. Based on the humane care for the bereaved family members, we are not only building a place to store the remains and ashes of the dead, but also building a place of spiritual comfort for the living relatives. To this extent, they never pass away. Death is not the end of life. Being Forgotten is.
The problems of traditional tiled cemetery in cities.
1. Tiled graveyard covers an enormous area. It is a great waste of the cities with rare land.
2. The area of tiled graveyard can hardly be adjusted. As the death toll increased, the site of cemetery in a certain city block cannot make expansion easily.
Remodeling the future cemetery with skyscrapers.
We propose to solve the problem of traditional cemeteries by using a skyscraper which could adjust different high by itself. It consists of series of space structure, Tornadoes and a urn like lantern. This skyscraper float over the city. Not only does it can save the land, but also all urban residents can see the light from their family members’ tombstones, just like family members have become starts in the distance watching us with us. The entire cemetery is located in a gravity-free space in the middle of our building “Tornado”. As the death toll increase, the top of our building will rise, enlarging the graveyard to accommodate more dead people.
At the bottom of the cemetery, there is a laser emitting device. When the living people worship their relatives, the laser will always glow to illuminate the city. When the relatives or friends completely forget the dead, the laser will go out, and the urn will fall into the device below the cemetery. When living people worship their relative and fly the “hope lantern”. When this “hope lantern” will flies into our buildings, it would highlight the laser lamp under the urn, at same time, the “hope lantern” will fall into the lake and then becomes one of a lotus lamps during the fete. We hope that our building could solve the problem of tradition graveyards, let them refreshed from the pain of losing their families.
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