Facilitating grief and fostering remembrance through architecture and landscape

Abstract

Today’s multicultural and spiritually non-religious Western society seems to be moving away from notions of death and the grief caused by it, requiring its concealment to avoid disrupting everyday life. This is evident in how society stigmatizes public expressions of grief and the apparent lack of virtual and physical spaces outside of homes and institutions. Society has limited space for grief, and we are left to our own devices to navigate the complex, confusing, and painful experience of bereavement. Considering the important role the physical world and our bodies have in accessing memories, this research will navigate the expansive field of grief research and implement a crossover to the field of architecture. Through photo documentation and a process of making, this research suggests grief-related spaces can be expanded outside of homes and institutions to provide accessible therapeutic spaces that facilitate the various needs of the bereaved and foster remembrance.