Research-led Design 2014
An experimental, interdisciplinary module where students select their own project, site, research and design methodology. Each student develops their own individual architectural project, one that uses a purpose-made student generated methodology and a site of their choice, anywhere in the world. Some of the disciplines / methodologies with which architectural research and design has been intersected with during 2014 include film studies and animation, cinematic storyboarding and collage, geometrical plaster sculpting, photography, utopian fantasy speculation, choreography, participatory design, glass making, sound design, painting, prefabrication. This module is for the emerging architect who wants to develop their specific area of design-led research practice in a creative way.
Tutors: Dr. Igea Troiani, Dr. Nick Beech, Dr. Tonia Carless, Harriet Harriss
The Informal Community of the Manila North Cemetery
The idea of 'informal space' has been used mainly in the field of proxemic studies and refers to the spatial distances individulas maintain in encounter interactions with others. It was introduced in Hall's anthropological literature to identity this specific category of spatial experience. He sees a space as informal space 'because it is unstated, not because it lacks form or has no importance'.
The formal system in a city slowly invades by the informal occupation of space. The 'informal' forms their unwritten rules to occupy the formal space and turns the space to meet the requirement of the occupants. The informal space often refers to the space that is used to conduct informal business or social transactions. Laguerre sees the formation of informal spaces in a typical-third-world city as a result of the land does not fall under the regulatory mechanisms of the city government.
In the city of Manila, locals who can't afford the housing occupy their ancestors' mausoleums as their permanent shelters. Some of the local work as the caretaker of Manila North Cemetery and lives inside the tomb of the other family as a return for their service. This transformation has created diverse informal activities within the North Cemetery.
The Manila North Cemetery
The locals built shelters on top of the sarcophagus in the North Cemetery.
The Manila North Cemetery is a typical cemetery where the cemetery became a slum that occupy by locals who can't afford their own houses. Manila is a bustling capital city of Philippines, where housing scarcity forcing the local to lives with their ancestors in the cemetery. Manila's population had rise to a number of 12 million and this put it at a ranking of world's eleventh largest metropolitan area and the fifth largest urban area by population. The vast majority of the citizens are poor, approximately 40% of them lives under the poverty line.
The living condition of the dwellers in the North Cemetery.
The Manila North Cemetery is the oldest and largest cemetery in the city, approximately 54 acres in total area. It provides a possibility for the poor to dwell in. Corrugated iron shed located on top of hundreds and thousands of stacked tombs became their living area. Stone sarcophaguses inside the mausoleums became their beds. The dwellers in the cemetery even have their own electricity supplied from the nearby street, and water from the well dug around the cemetery ground.
New flows and circulations in the cemetery.
The site has created a symbiotic relationship between the living and the dead. The community relies on the cemetery to provides the living needs in the city of Manila. On the hand the cemetery taking advantage from the community to maintain its condition and service. The community faces death everyday in the cemetery and it has become part of their life. This informal community formed in the cemetery is different from the other typical community. As they don’t segregate themselves from the death but embrace the death as a source of living. Unlike most of other cultures see death as a taboo and a responsibility of the professionals. The informal community in the Manila North Cemetery lives among the death.
The North Green Park of the Manila North Cemetery.
The proposed prototype is located in the Manila North Green Park. The site is an existing mausoleum. It shares the same architectural language with some other typical mausoleums in the North Cemetery. The aim of this studio project is to propose a long-term solution for the informal community and the dead in the cemetery. Mainly taking it as a challenge to preserve the unique cultural context found in this site. Sitton once challenged architects to build structures that meet both the formal and informal needs.
The Manila North Green Park has not been occupied by the current community yet, giving this proposal a much flexible possibility to develop the prototype. The informal community in the cemetery is a unique cultural context in the city of Manila. The natural harmony between the community and the dead should be embraced. It is an example to respond to the statement that society should not see death as a taboo or a responsibility for the professionals.
The Reason to Stay
Through the study of a series of data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, the area of the cemetery, population of the cemetery and the poverty level in the city of Manila can be analysed.
3rd District: Santa Cruz, San Nicolas, Binondo, Quiapo.
Area: 6.24 km2
Population (2010): 197,859
Manila North Cemetery Area: 0.54 km2
Approximate population: 18650 x 0.54 km2 = 10,071
North Cemetery Mausoleum Plot Area: 127.2 m2
Population (2010): 197,859
Manila North Cemetery Area: 0.54 km2
Approximate population: 18650 x 0.54 km2 = 10,071
North Cemetery Mausoleum Plot Area: 127.2 m2
'Mario Pormales, 52, came to North Cemetery several years ago because it brought him closer to his work, as a gravestone mason and caretaker for the graves. He earns US$10 for each gravestone he marks, often earning up to US$150 in a week, good money for locals in Manila. (26625.00 Philippine Peso) Unofficial estimates reckon as many as 10,000 people live in North Cemetery.'
One of the interview with the caretaker, Mario, convinced that poverty is not the only reason why he stays in the cemetery. The earning of the caretakers consider as above poverty level comparing with the official poverty data above. It shows that some people in Manila willing to accept death as part of their life and as a decent way to earn a living in the cemetery.
Site Issues
Although it might be a personal choice to stay in a cemetery, the difficulty to live in such condition has to be faced by the community. The cemetery is a ‘gated community’ where the residents form a symbiotic relationship with the dead. To make money, children carry coffins for 50 cents, as they believe this will bring them good luck. Some children collect scrap metal, while their parents work to clean the crypts of the wealthier areas, work security, or dig graves. They often run local businesses from within their mausoleums. Nonetheless, the cemetery is no easy place to live, lacking hot water, electricity, and any kind of functional sewage system. There have been complaints from both residents and visitors that a bad element has moved in, such as thieves and drug addicts who are robbing the graves. The city authorities have repeatedly threatened to evict those living here but the caretakers have found a way to stay on despite the pressure, by maintaining the families graves.
The cemetery had came out with an unwritten rule to solve the problem of this overly crowded cemetery, which is the body in the mausoleum will be removed by the caretakers if the family failed to pay the cemetery after the five years due. The remaining body will be carry to a small shelter in North Cemetery as its final place of interment.
A video footage of how the caretakers remove the buried remains into their 'final resting place' after the five years due.
Design Strategy
The spatial strategy for this studio project focuses on how to weave relavent spaces together, to create another layer of flow onto the existing mausoleum. The proposed spaces tend to integrate with the existing mausoleum without taking away its originial function. Linkage and buffer zone are used as the main medium to link the structure with the existing mausoleum.
The progressive diagrams, generating an initial idea how to incorporates the spaces into the existing site.
The existing rigid circulation of the mausoleum will be overlaid with a proposed circulation, connecting the existing mausoleums with the proposed structures. The main structural frame for this proposal will be firstly constructed to support the future modular dwelling units.
The Memorialisation
Catholicism is the main believe in North Cemetery. A traditional Catholic funeral consists of three main parts: The Vigil, The Requiem Mass, and The Burial and After-burial Gatherings. Note that the following pertains to funerals for adults; funerals for baptized children who've not yet reached the age of reason are quite different and joyful because they, without a doubt, go straight to Heaven, not having had the opportunity to commit a mortal sin. In childrens' funerals, the priest wears white, the Gloria Patri is not replaced with the Requiem aeternam, the Gloria in excelsis is said, etc. Their Mass is not a Requiem Mass, but a "Votive Mass of the Angels".
The Catholic funeral will be reflected in this project as a journey of relief. The main funeral hall is led by a journey which creates a sense of relief, from the 'dark-heavy-entrance' to a 'bright-light- funeral hall'.
Generating the thoughts of the memorialisation through the digital collage. The Silent Journey.
The study model of the Silent Journey.
Materiality
Finding the possibilities to reuse the materials found in the cemetery.
Forming intial architectural language through the digital collage of the scrap materials.
In-situ.
The section.
The modular structure. [The Community]
The structure of the Silent Journey. [The Memorialisation]
Artist's Impressions
The overall aerial view.
The overall aerial view.
The funeral hall.
The crematorium.
The caretakers' daily basis.
The functional modules for the community.
The proposed circulation between the modules on top of the mausoleums.
The caretakers' working hub.
The caretakers' working hub.
The water tower and main communal space.
Decades
The studio project is to propose a prototype for the Manila North Cemetery's informal community, in order to continuously preserve the diversity in the cemetery. Providing the community an initial structure frame that will eventually developed into a mass that carries the cultural context of the site. The cemetery will continuously sustaining the community by providing working opportunities and living needs. As time goes by, the modular units built by the informal community will take over the proposed architecture. What is left from the proposed architecture will be the structures that meet both the formal and informal needs in this cemetery.
end.
