Seascape, Emotion, Memory and Self
Atmosphere and Agency
Supervisor - Mr Alan Tay
This thesis stems from my lament of our increasingly desensitized connection with the sea despite Singapore being an island state. The intent of the proposal for a seafront crematorium and columbarium on Kusu Island was to ignite a new connection with the sea through a program richly imbued with emotions and memories. It is a series of spatial spectacles, formally elaborated and staged for the funeral rituals. These spaces, lined along the edge of the shoreline, derive metaphors, ambience, sensorial stimuli and imagery from the sea. It is an attempt at a phenomenological approach to architecture that places primacy on the senses, materiality and tectonics.
The impetus was then to use an architectural intervention as a vehicle to drive opportunities to understand and reconcile with the sea. The project eventually took the form of a crematorium cum columbarium along the shoreline of Kusu Island, Singapore. The intervention taps on the various elements of the sea to curate highly emotive atmospheres that are associated with sending off a loved one. The project explores the tangible and intangible ways in which we relate to the sea and the possibilities of a crematorium cum columbarium within such a context.
The intervention manifests in spaces that strive to relate notions of the sea to the emotions and senses that are engaged during the grieving process. A heightened atmosphere is created as the state of grief that one experiences during a send-off, is paired with the many ways seascape affects our five senses, i.e. the smell of the salty seawater, the sound of waves crashing against a seawall or the image of a rising tide.
The Arrival
The ferry stops.
The undertakers swiftly unload the casket and the mourners emerge from the private ferry.
The casket moves on an automated belt and the mourners start walking in tandem.
They move in a parallel fashion, side by side; a comfortable distance.
At some point, the platform starts to split, as if the sea were tearing two realms apart.
A mourner takes a few more glances at the casket as it drifts further away and his line of sight gets increasingly interrupted by the elaborate number of structural supports; it was as though these supports compensated the separation.
The mourners finally step on land.
They ascend up a ramp and stop to watch the casket descend underground; they meet again, but they were bound for different destinations.
The Ceremonial Space
The walls are a gradual, elemental stack of rocks against a row of thin steel columns.
A gesture to build an enclosure to retain memories of the deceased.
As one faces the casket ahead, in preparation for the ceremony to commence, one sees the expansion of the seawall creeping into the interior space, creating a compressed view of the horizon.
This fort of a wall built from heavy rocks is ironically porous; the gaps in between the rocks allow light to trespass.
Memories of the deceased inevitably fade and leave us, like the lights that seep through the cracks and enter another realm unknown.
The Final Send Off
It almost looks like a larger than life seashell that seemed to capture the sounds of the sea and its waves crashing against the seawall.
The structure appears to fold within itself to create curved surfaces that echoes and reverberates these sounds within the space.
As one settles into the dimly lit viewing platform, one watches the casket slowly descend.
It is at this final moment that one cannot help but lose control of emotions, perhaps now one truly realises that this person would be gone forever.
And at this moment of outpour, the sound of one’s voice and one’s crying seem to be drowned by the amplified sounds of the sea.
Despite being surrounded by people, one now feels alone at this moment, in their own space, with their own emotions, and a sense of liberation wraps them.
The Columbarium
From a distance, this seems to remind one of a breakwater or a defensive seawall, where modules are put together in a rather random fashion, protecting the coast.
As one proceeds into the individual spaces, you are confronted by a window that frames a portion of the seascape and metallic surfaces on both walls, and behind these surfaces hold the urns of your loved ones.
As time passes, and one returns to visit their loved on, to pay respects, these surfaces tarnish over time due to the proximity to seawater, and a layer appears to form over the niche.
The Pavilion
The island basks in the scorching afternoon sun. The tide is low now.
Walking along the deck, one notices an expansive fan-like structure with a roof that blatantly extends into the waters of the intertidal area.
As one descend further into the pavilion, the smell of the salty seawater overwhelms you.
Approaching the limits of the pavilion, one notices a light vapour forming due to the evaporation of the salty water at low tide.
The smell is a familiar one; it is the smell that reminds you of your previous visit- when you sent of your loved one.
Links & Contact:
Email - taymints@live.com.sg
Tags: #atmosphere #ceremonial #coast #columbarium #crematorium #death #desensitization #edge #elemental #emotion #enclosure #grief #intertidal #island #KusuIsland #landscape #maritime #memorial #memory #metaphor #mourn #niche #outpour #remembrance #salt #sea #seascape #seawall #self #separation #Singapore #smell #sound #split #tide #water #waterfront
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