Under a Blanket of Plants
Location: Forest Cemetery, Riga, Latvia
Size: 500 nichies
Status: 2nd Prize Winner, Columbarium - the Chamber of Memories, International Architecture Competition, Collaborator: Rachel Reinhard
Under a Blanket of Plants references Latvian folklore that regards death as a celebration of life that is one with nature. It proposes a new ground plane of gently rolling hills pocketed by niches that extend deep into the ground. The modulation of the landscape defines a series of spaces that, “feel at once intimate and expansive.” According to the jury: “The idea to accommodate the columbarium niches in an innovative way, under a gentle rolling hills landscape, makes this proposal unique and special. It is a place to celebrate life and death, and life again. It subtly reforms the landscape and creates a place of memory and recollection, while also allowing new wild forest life to flourish. It manages to be inconspicuous and unique at the same time, blurring the notions of natural and artificial using a minimum of elements.”