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Project

The Embodiment of Consolation: unlocking the interaction between mourning, drawing and space.

Recent bereavement studies are observing a growing divide between the existing ‘deathscapes’ (Maddrell & Sidaway 2010) and the transforming socio-cultural landscape of mourning within our secularizing western society. Memorial practices are moving away from the public domain towards the everyday and private environments of the bereaved, while the strive for closure is shifting towards a longing for continuing bonds with the deceased.

This research approaches this issue from a new angle by addressing the following research question: (How) can architecture, i.e. the conception and the built form of (re)designed space, contribute to the development of innovative ways of space-making resonating with these contemporary memorial practices?

Answering this question will expand existing knowledge on the interaction between place and mourning through creative expression by tying this theoretical research together with a study of both drawn and built architectural oeuvres. A design-driven research of a series of case studies, involving the implementation of these new insights into the mourning process of participants through a cyclical process of drawing, will help realize two objectives:

Firstly, the development of a theoretical framework for mapping, engaging with and transforming (in)tangible topographies of mourning through architectural drawing and built space. The resulting embodiment of consolation will help close the aforementioned divide while, secondly, unlocking architecture as a new medium within Art Therapy by exploring the therapeutic potential of both the design process and the resulting (re)designed space and by (re)defining the position of the architect within the patient-medium-therapist dynamic.

Date:1 Nov 2020 →  Today
Keywords:contemporary and personalized memorial practices, transforming bonds (between the bereaved and the deceased), the therapeutic potential of architecture
Disciplines:Architecture not elsewhere classified
Project type:PhD project