PROJECT _01
VERTICAL CEMETERY

A thin space can be defined as a place that shortens the distance between heaven and earth. A transcendent place that brings either positive or negative emotion and allows one to feel closer to a higher power. By researching these places and what emotions they may convey, a program naturally developed into a conceivable project named “A Civic Sanctuary”.

The vertical cemetery places itself in the urban setting of New York City. Connected to the high-line, an elevated public park, it combines burial spaces around the continuation of the urban park. The two programs bring together an emotional presence and pockets of nature and light throughout the infrastructure, creating a coterminous relationship between life and death.  The project realizes places of contemplation and isolation from a dense city. It is a civic sanctuary where the deceased are honored, but not segregated from the living.