This proposal aims to highlight life’s interconnected cycles, systems and relationships by placing the programs of social housing, urban beekeeping, and internment in vertical ‘programmatic columns.’ The social housing units with beehives beneath are raised above an undulating public plaza at grade, and a public vegetable garden and cemetery below grade. Light wells in the public plaza connect the three programs on site both visually and through the circulation of bees and people. As people circulate between the plaza, cemetery, and housing, the bees follow a similar path between their hives and the garden below. The bees pollinate vegetables to be consumed by the site’s residents in living spaces oriented towards the light wells and the gardens below. Finally, the cyclical path that visitors follow around the site relates to the cyclical processes taking place within the garden cemetery, where bodies decompose in a matter of six months, aided by the Promession process which uses sound waves to turn bodies into dust, feeding plant growth. After six months, each plot is ready to house another body, starting the cycle once again.

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Client: Carleton University MArch Studio

Program: Social Housing, Internment Facility, Urban Apiary

Date: 2018

Credits: Justin Lewis