Thesis Statement

There is a need for a place where the abandoned - the incarcerated, the displaced, and the estran ed an re eive are, harity, o anionshi , and love in their final days, so they are able to live with dignity and to die with dignity. Conventional hospice care is predicated upon the idealized view of the home, or as a sterile environment. Rather than designing by what it rejects, hospice architecture should be designed by what it is, a sacred place an individual will have their last sensory experiences, a sacred space, serving as a gateway or a threshold from the here to the after. The architecture should stimulate all the senses and in doing so allow the individual to feel dignity while they remain in the world.

“The person feels condemned to receive help and assistance from others, and at the same time seems useless to himself. he discovery of the salvific meaning of suffering in union with hrist transforms this depressing feeling. aith in sharing in the suffering of hrist brings with it the interior certainty that the suffering person completes what is lac ing in hrist s a ictions the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the wor of edemption he is serving, li e hrist, the salvation of his brothers and sisters”

“ he soul survives and subsists separated from the body, while the body is sub ected to gradual decomposition according to the words of the ord od ... ou are dust and to dust you shall return ” 2

2. Pope John Paul II. Apostolic Letter of His Holiness Pope John Paul II n the hristian eaning of uman Suffering Salvifici Doloris. Boston, MA: St. Paul Editions, 1984.