Those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out. The Story This is a project about life and death inspired by ancient wisdom in the attempt to help people to complete their last journey in life. I was first inspired by a Chinese literature Fortress besieged which depicts a phenomenon of inferiority experienced in relation to others in terms of studies, work and marriage. During my research, I discovered a diverse attitude towards life from different groups of people. People who are suffering from terminal illness like cancer do not seek treatment to get better but instead chose to spend their last days in hospice care. On the other hand, there are people who choose to end their life because of the perception that their problems are unbearable and unsolvable, for example a heartbreak or bankruptcy. The difference between these two attitudes is that one is keen to live on but is left hopeless with no choice but to give their life back to God, whereas the other group with a perfectly healthy body has no hope and motivation in life to live on. My design intention is to create a space whereby the two types of people will have a chance to cross paths. These patients in their last stage of life could be an inspiration to those who want to take their own life, making them treasure life. As we all know, it is only a matter of time before the people in the hospice will leave this world if they know that they will spend their remaining time in a place trying to save another life, they will feel more comforted and find meaning in their last days helping. At the same time, this project intends to bring the public into the program to raise awareness that life is meaningful only if there is death. The word 'life' itself will not exist if not for death. Life is
valued only because it is temporary and uncertain. Hospices are very isolated from the community because of the taboo of death. There is no initiative to engage the community to eradicate these taboos, therefore resistance and sadness are always associated with the hospice. In other words, we refuse to accept the reality of death. In my research, I came across a suicide forest, Aokigahara which is a 35-square-kilometre forest that lies at the northwest base of Mount Fuji in Japan. It was found that people who are indecisive will usually wrap a tape on trees on their way and if they change their mind, they still can find their way out along this tape because the forest is so dense that all will get lost in it. The fact that these people who went in with the thought of dying still held on to the hope of living is suggesting that there must be something greater in that environment for these people to realise hope and desire for their future to change their minds. This could be due to the magnitude of nature like the borderless sea or the endless prairie where one is reduced to the scale of a proton in the universe. This reminded me of the yearly trips to my great-grandmother s grave where I discovered a practice in the ancient times when those are too poor to even afford a tomb would plant a tree on the graves to bring the lost life back to nature and find their roots. This is very poetic to me. While I took the inspiration of the forest in this proposal, I was also inspired by the sky lantern festival in Thailand. In November every year, people in Thailand will light the lanterns and set them free to the sky to commemorate their families.
The Design This proposal of a hospice cum suicide rehabilitation centre is named LANTERN TREE to encompass these two ancient practices. This design is structured like a tree with lanterns which celebrates the cycle of life and death of people. Like an organism, it breaths the life and death of those who dwell in it. When one patient passes away, a lantern will light up to celebrate his/her release from their pain. The spectacle of these lanterns changes in accordance to the life/death from within as time passes. 1
As such, our position to the ground in relation to the process of life and death became the main organizing factor as shown in the diagram above. It shows the relationship with the ground between people who are alive, people who have passed away and those in the hospice. The zoning in this design is arranged based on the diagram 1 where the ward, doctors office and pharmacy expands into the concept of the tree root which become bed, table and book shelves. 2The vertical axis of this proposal links one from life to death or vice versa with two main lifts. The life lift is situated in the centre linking the first floor to the top floor serving as a passage to heaven where one ascends from underground to the roof top. As one reaches the top floor they will encounter a spiritual hall for all to pray. Like a temple, the scale of this space is huge to reciprocate the sense of smallness in people. Outside the spiritual hall are the counselling rooms for people who have no desire to live on. Beside the life lift is the death lift which is two floors lower connecting to all patient wards to transport the deceased patients to the underground. The horizontal axis is where life enters and exits with two main passages: The life passage and the death passage. The life passage will lead to a café, library and reception connecting to the life lift at the centre. Whereas the death life is connected to the death passage leading one to a bus at the end of it which will bring the dead to the crematorium. These two passages mark the start and end of the journey.