Zhi Yi Chung
Death in the Chinese culture is a taboo. Unlike the western, who take family walks, picnics in graveyards, the reserved culture of Chinese tends to avoid anything that relates to death and seldom express their emotions on this topic.
As land values hike up, traditional methods of burial has become expensive. Columbarium is an economical method of burial. The columbarium is proposed to reuse a rapid loader in a closed mine where the land had been rich in minerals. In the cycle of life, everything returns to the ground, where peace will be achieved.
The dead brings away nothing. Material in this case, is non-existence. Only the intangible, light, becomes the tangible material to guide people directionally or atmospherically. The columbarium itself acts as the object for the living to connect with the missing fragments, leaving the livings traces of memories with a disparate mix of personal emotions. The building of changing spatial volumes is intended to take the users through a journey of processing their own emotions personally or with the companionship of others. The voids represent the missing fragments in one’s life that will never be replaced, just like the Chinese yearn of ‘reunion’ with their loved ones.