Aqua-cemetery: Redefining Cemetery In Tokyo 2030

For the past decade, Tokyo is faced with declining birth rates, shortages of spaces in city, and skyrocketing prices for cemetery plots. In view of these dark sides brought up by the rapid urbanization, radical rethink in how the deceased are buried and commemorated are the key issue to this metropolis. Picking up the current situation of Tokyo and foreseeing the near future, the project critiques on this graving situation by proposing a vertical cemetery in 2030 in the most crowded area in Tokyo, Shinjuku, as a hope to give a solution to these social problems, and redesign the burial of the dead into a meaningful, permanent environmental tribute to life. Aquarium + Cemetery We believe that composing aquarium and cemetery together can be an avant-garde answer to Tokyo in 2030. Out of expectation, the two programs together can form a loop cycle of regenerating the living from the dead, i.e. displacement of life. Such loop system gives a new value to those past away and create a sustainable underwater ecosystem through the process. Displacement of Life through time The standard processing of dead bodies in Japan nowadays is to cremate the body, followed by storage in urns. But this is spatially inflexible to Tokyo, which has high land cost, and also gives burden to the living to monetarily fund it. The proposed design creates new marine habitats for fish and other forms of sea life. Cremated remains are processed into cement mixture dedicated to create artificial reef formations, which is then placed in the predesigned aquarium space. Throughout time, living corals transplant and attract underwater species to migrate. At last, the whole habitat redevelops and creates a more vibrant ecosystem. Hence, life regenerates.