Kelly Geus

DOODGEWOON_het uitvaartcomplex

The process of dealing with death and saying farewell is changing.
Traditional rituals and ceremonies lose strength and significance. People more and more have their own ways of believing.
Death is commonly denied.
Due to aging of people, the number of deaths and a shortage of cemeteries will increase the coming years.

Throughout history the dead were kept outside the city, people tried to keep them outside life.
Research to bring the dead back to today’s life ended up in choosing the location.
The funeral complex is situated on “de Steilrand“ in the “Belvédère” area in Maastricht, in a more urban context that led to dual landuse.
In order to extract raw materials the earth of “Steilrand” was removed to +/- 50 m NAP, this negative level is used as landfill waste.

In this funeral complex, space is created for saying farewell, grieving and caring; for a variety of graves, cremation and memorialization regardless of culture or religion.
A place for the dead and living, a transparent and confrontational meeting place for walkers or cyclists to grieve and to realize that death itself is a part of life.
The aim is not the event of cremation or burial, but the ritual of the procedure.
Especially in the funeral ritual, the transitions between the different ceremonies are present, in contrast to the cremation process.
The distance between the phases at various levels support the psychological sequence of the mourning process and the process of loss.

By merging the phases into 1 building, the coaching process from beginning to end is made visible and accessible for the families.
The structure of the plan shows a variety of scenarios and levels of individual participation.

It’s a place to return to.
After all there is nothing to hide and death may be seen again.
The threshold should be lower and the taboo must fade!

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