A Descending Columbarium

The project is a columbarium and crematorium complex. It is located on the Eastern peripherie of Blacksburg, Virginia. The site slopes downward to the South East. The project is organized in an axial arrangement following the direction of the slope.

The program of the building does not follow any religious ritual and is culturally determined only in so far as cremation is an acceptable form of disposal of the deceased.

In this sense the building itself becomes a memorial of the dead.

With the exclusion of formal ritual as a guiding principle for an architectural expression of the contemplation of death simple geometric figures are meant to evoke a general sense of proper emotional and intellectual response to the phenomenon of death, perhaps to dying. This approach hopes to allow for individual contemplation of the ending and the end of human life.