This project was my final year undergraduate thesis, but it still means a great deal to me and remains one of the works I’m most proud of.

At its core, the project explores how we might reintroduce death—and the facilities related to this traditionally taboo topic—back into our communities. It was deeply influenced by the passing of my grandfather. I found it heartbreaking that people are often removed from the communities they’ve lived in for decades, only to be cremated in unfamiliar places and buried far from the rest of their families.

In the past, such distancing was justified by concerns over air pollution and hygiene. But with advances in technology, there are now more natural, sustainable ways to handle human remains—such as the Recompose project initiated in Seattle. Inspired by this, I envisioned a death care service centre located in the heart of Bristol—beneath the grounds of Castle Park.

Here, the boundaries between life and death are blurred, both physically and culturally. Citizens enjoy quiet afternoons in a forest nourished by organic reduction soil from the centre—transforming grief into something tangible, woven into daily life. The flow of everyday park visitors and families attending funerals is interlaced, without interfering with one another. Death, in this context, is no longer a cold or distant concept, but something the community learns to acknowledge and encounter earlier in life.

A community that embraces death with warmth and openness is, to me, an ideal one to live in. I’m deeply grateful to my grandfather—not only for the love he gave while he was with us, but also for the legacy he left behind. It was his memory that gave me the strength and purpose to bring this project to life.