The Architecture of Release

There is a need for a place where the abandoned - the incarcerated, the displaced, and the estranged - can receive care, charity, companionship, and love in their final days, so they are able to live and to die with dignity. Conventional hospice care is predicated upon the idealized view of the home, but that foundation falls apart when the idea of home is not a welcoming place. Rather than designing by what it rejects, hospice architecture should be designed by what it is, the last place an individual will have sensory experiences. The architecture should stimulate all the senses, including the sense of the sacred, and in doing so allow the individual to feel dignity while in the world, until they are ready to go . . .