House for Dying: Personalising the process of dying

Abstract

Medical intervention such as chemotherapy and antibiotics have put an end to many types of illnesses. The ability to avoid morbidity and mortality has increased amongst young and middle-aged people which has expanded the average human lifespan. Now hospitals are facing an increased number of patients with malignancies and chronic diseases particularly related to old age. These diseases are often incurable hence we call these patients terminally ill. Through the advancement in medical science the form of death has changed rapidly from being a natural part of life to something unfamiliar. In simpler terms, the more we believe in medical science, the more we seem to deny the inevitability of death. In a space where the patient’s name is replaced with an ID number with no family, no personal belongings, memories, or opinions, they slowly lose their significance and they begin to be treated as an object. Though the blame cannot be pinned on doctors whose job is to provide hope for the patient and keep them alive for as long as possible, the process of fighting against the disease naturally becomes an act of denial and fear of death in the patient’s mind. To better understand how we should cope with our end of life experience, this thesis aims to outline what the contributing factors are that’s responsible for generating such unfamiliar territories regarding death among those who are unaffected. I then explore the potential of architecture and the role it could serve in mitigating this disconnection, allowing the topic of ‘real-death’ to be brought up to the forefront of social discourse. Whilst there are multiple reasons why our own death is hard to accept, a common reason would be that it is impossible to imagine something that is currently out of our consciousness. As an architectural solution, I aim to design a house not for the ‘living’ but as a place of ‘dying’. The program will consist of questions such as: Who would you like to be with before you die? What legacy would you like to leave? How do you want to be remembered by others? What would you like to remember for yourself? thus inviting death into our awareness. The 'House for Dying' hopes to re-envision architectural possibilities for treating terminal patients where it can trace the narratives of the patient as someone who has wishes, feelings, opinions, and dignity.