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The building seen from Lago Mayor’s north shore
The center’s north wall becomes a vertical cemetery – in it, the remains of 1,000 Lung Cancer victims are held in the Temporary Inurnment Vaults. After a period of time these Urns are either returned to the family or placed in the Permanent Inurnment Vaults. These tomb markers are on display to the city and become a new, dominant feature of Chapultepec Forest.
The building is clad in titanium dioxide-coated aluminum panels that clean the air around it. When the titanium dioxide of the panels reacts with water and oxygen in the air, it generates free radicals that oxidize the molecules of nitrogen oxide - the primary component of smog – turning them into a harmless nitrate.

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Vertical Cemetery

Lung Cancer Victim Prayer Center and Cemetery

This competition entry for a "Necropolis" in Mexico City takes the form of a giant exposed cube set over Lago Central in the Parque de Chapultepec and houses chapels, vigil rooms, crematories, urns and crypts for lung cancer victims. A larger than life monument meant to raise awareness in one of the cities with the worst air pollution on earth, the building at the same time looks to dignify death and in doing so celebrate life.

Status: Competition Entry
Location: México Distrito Federal, MX

Site plan.

View from the west
The three “milestones” cut the building into four “phases”. The milestone’s vertical markedness express the inevitability of eventual unwellness, death and decomposition. The cube’s destabilizing image represents the fragile nature of life. The main programmatic elements – Chapels, Vigil Rooms and Crematories – are conceived as living / working environments for the cemetery staff assigned to each activity.

Aerial view from the southwest
Unconventional as a tower since the length and width of its footprint equals its height, the design uses space lavishly to properly commemorate the victims. The Lago Mayor cemetery is a commanding new addition to the Mexico City skyline.

3D section through Hall of Cremation. The five crematories are suspended above the floor of the Hall of Cremation by attaching to the main structural frame of the building. The same logic applies to the Chapels in the Hall of Life and the Vigil Rooms in the Hall of Vigil. The lower level of each of these units serves as personal dormitory to the center's primary staff: priests, nurses, and crematory technicians. A roof garden is included also on each of these living/working units.

Interior of Hall of Mourning looking West
The last of the four halls - the largest due to the building’s rotation in plan - features the interior of the Vertical Cemetery - a100m by 100m wall, 4 meters thick, also visible from the outside. It holds the 1,000 tomb markers of the Center. To the left and facing them are the 100 Mausoleums.

Interior of Garden of Sickness looking East
Central to the building’s rasion d’ etre are the opportunities it provides for interaction between the users of the building – patients and their loved ones and center staff – and casual visitors to the building. Issues of compassion, respect, and lessons about life and death are all fostered in the places where both private and public circulations interact: the three gardens that house the project’s vertical circulation and both connect and separate the four halls.

Presentation board background image featuring 1,000 fictional names generated randomly on computer by processing a few first name and surname databases extracted from the internet. In the project's fictional universe, these are the names of the 1,000 deceased whose ashes are inurned at the cemetery at a given point in time. Any similarity to actual names is... well, you know. As I said, they were randomly generated. I included these names to add a slight dramatic dimension to the presentation, given the subject matter.