Open Collections

Wong-Wylie, Iris

This project sets out to design a space specifically for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), addressing a largely unexamined architectural typology: spaces for dying. Designing for death requires entering an uncomfortable mindset, as designers must confront mortality directly in order to consider how a space might hold, support, and honor the end of a life. This confrontation is not only necessary but generative: by understanding death, we can design with greater compassion and clarity for those approaching it. This booklet presents eight invitations as open-ended questions intended to guide the reader into a deeper, more intimate relationship with death. I have responded to each invitation through spatial drawings, which diagram the architectural implications of each question. These serve as a foundation for imagining what spaces for dying might require, both functionally and emotionally. In the design phase, I applied these insights to a real site, testing and grounding this speculative typology. The resulting design, which I have entitled the Deathspace, reflects my researched and personal understanding of death. It is attuned to the needs of the dying individual and their loved ones, offering space for presence, grief, and parting. The project concludes with a speculative gesture: the staging of my own hypothetical deathbed, as a final lens through which I interrogate my own relationship to mortality. Ultimately, this work proposes not only a new architectural typology, but also a broader, more human invitation: that by considering our own deaths we might come to live with greater depth and intention.

Text

University of British Columbia. ARCH_V 549

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0448757

Applied Science, Faculty of; Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/