American studios Lehrer Architects and AyD have used thick concrete slabs to create an open-air “vertical mausoleum” lined with timber inside a famend Los Angeles cemetery.
The structure studios alternated concrete slabs, open voids and greenery when creating the construction, which rises 100 ft from the sting of Hollywood Eternally Cemetery. Its top makes it one in every of, if not the tallest, mausoleums in the US.
Lehrer Architects founder Michael B Lehrer advised Dezeen that the peak of the construction was born out of necessity when the design was initially commissioned in 2013.
He mentioned that the unique plan was to not instil monumentality, however that the location’s slender profile and the wants of the undertaking allowed the construction to rise above the low-lying surrounding buildings.
“The purpose was not monumentality initially,” mentioned Lehrer.
“Its structural turned monumental by dint of fixing for the structure. I do not suppose we ever used the phrase ‘monument’ however, in the long run, it’s, actually.”
The studio known as the construction a “vertical mausoleum”. It was designed to carry 22,500 crypt areas and 30,000 niches for ashes, unfold over 5 storeys, the highest of which has views of the Hollywood hills and the enduring Hollywood signal.
To carry the heavy crypts, three-inch-thick slabs of concrete separate every one horizontally and vertically, making a “honeycomb” design all through.
5-storey voids and five-storey concrete volumes alternate to kind the mausoleum, with giant planters for rising timber in between.
Breezeways are enclosed by the strong volumes of the crypts, which had been lined in geometric patterns.
As a result of a lot of the construction wanted to be strong to account for the crypts, it offered a novel structural alternative, in response to Lehrer, who in contrast it to infrastructural work in its seriality.
“There simply aren’t that many locations like this, significantly with stuff in them. Perhaps engineering buildings or freeway overpasses which will have one thing analogous,” Lehrer mentioned.
“It is someplace between designing housing and designing a car parking zone.”
For the faces of the crypts, Brazilian quartzite was used. This allowed for it to be completely different from the concrete and supply area for engravings, with an identical stone used for the wayfinding.
A number of the crypt volumes cantilever out from the construction, creating area for the tree planters. The structure studio mentioned that 4 completely different structural engineers had been consulted for the cantilevered crypts, earlier than native agency Brandow and Johnston was in a position to execute the development “with out compromising the unique design”.
Breezeways prolong into metal-railed balconies, and the whole thing of the ceiling is accessible.
On high of the construction is a Columbarium with niches for urns, which is distinguished materially from the remainder of the construction by a scalloped granite facade materials that from a distance appears to be like virtually metallic.
Working with native panorama studio MLA, the architects oriented the planting components in order that the timber will rise above the ground plates and vines will drape under.
“The seriality of the structure and the seriality of the inexperienced solids between the voids – it will age very effectively,” mentioned Lehrer. “Its monumentality can be each as constructing and as panorama.”
Hollywood Eternally Cemetery was initially designed within the late nineteenth century by Joseph Earnshaw and has remained a well-liked burial place for a lot of movie star locals, together with Judy Garland and Johnny Ramone, as Hollywood has continued to develop round it.
Lehrer mentioned that the density of the construction was borne out of necessity and that it represents the rising densification of Los Angeles, a metropolis lengthy related to city sprawl.
“The depth and density of it’s merely a operate of Los Angeles is urbanizing,” he mentioned. “However the density is the least attention-grabbing a part of it.”
“It is the architectural half which is attention-grabbing,” he added. “How do you make one thing like this that honors the total cycle and circles of life? I believe there is not any different place within the universe that this may very well be besides in the course of Hollywood, California.”
Two extra an identical buildings can be positioned subsequent to this one within the coming years, and the staff mentioned this can broaden using the cemetery for at the least one other 50 years and that the mausoleum will present “extra inexpensive” burial choices for the neighborhood.
Following the wildfires that devastated town in January, Lehrer emphasised the construction as a logo of permanence.
“As town grapples with the lengthy, difficult street to renewal and restoration, the Mausoleum exudes Los Angeles’s singularity, continuity, connection, and a healthful little bit of eternity,” he concluded.
Dezeen has a information to up to date cemetery design. Different latest homes of the lifeless embody one in Bangladesh with breeze blocks and skylights.
The pictures is by Tim Griffith.
The put up Lehrer Architects creates tree-covered mausoleum for Hollywood Eternally Cemetery appeared first on Dezeen.
