‘With all focus on life, death was forgotten.” For most people, the scariest thing about death isnʼt being dead, itʼs dying, torturous and suffering.
INTRODUCTION
The design intention of “Delightful Wishlists” is to bring intention of delightful elements in the sequnce of experiential end-of-life stages. From research, whatʼs most important for people who are closer to death is comfort; feeling unburdened and unburdening the people dea they love, existential peace, and sense of wonderment & spirituality. “Delighful Wishlists” is a human-centered, fully-assistive model of care for people who have accepted their mortality, and here is where caring becomes a creative, generative and delightful act. By “delightful”, aging and dying is treated as a process of crescendo through to the end and elements of wonderment enliven oneʼs endof-life journey, rather than just getting out of the way. of-li
PHASE I : NARRATIVE
Aging popula+on is becoming a big part of the Overall popula+on, especially in Singapore, and they are usually very dependent on themselves, which is very depressing as people at their age are supposed to be ‘aging in place’. The elderly is o@en being abused, abandoned and neglected because they are frail, unable to de independent and poor. They are o@en being treated as ‘eyesores’ and some Singaporean old folks are being forced to work due to their poor living condi+on. Some of them are just ‘wai+ng to die’. Meanwhile, Johor Bahru is a popular spot for medical tourism because it is affordable, near to Singapore and it has very advanced technology.
PHASE II : SITE ANALYSIS
Zooming into my site in Kilang Bateri, Johor Bahru, which is a repurposed baIery factory there is quite a handful of elderly care homes within its vicinity, hence portrays the poten+al of my site as a place specially de- signed for aging popula+on.
“People now tend to die of chronic diseases, and that means many of us will have to spend long period of figh+ng with chronic diseases at the end of our lives. In that period of +me, we’re most likely to spend +me in hospitals, care homes or hospices. Freedom is very much being restricted. However, hospital architecture has earned its bad reputa+on with endless, longs corridors and rows of uncomfortable chairs. But the surprising thing is, when looking at the Hospitals of Innocents by Fillipo Brunelleschi in1419, and think about hospitals today, what amazed me is the building’s ambi+on to create posi+ve ambiance to affect pa+ents’ recovery on illness: courtyard for contempla+on, light-filled interior spaces and comfor+ng scale of individuals. Somehow we’ve forgoIen that these are even possible for a sanatorium of one’s final journey. In India, at the Hotel of Death, Muk+ Bhawan, people check in to die. The hotel – a short walk from the Ganges River in the northern Indian city of Varanasi – is a final stopover for elderly Hindus hoping they will shortly end up on one of the hundreds of pyres lit on the riverbank each day. In Muk+ Bhawan, while the rest of the world celebrates a new life while a child is born, similarly death is being celebrated as the Hindus believe that dying in Varanasi and having their remains scaIered in the Ganges allows their soul to escape a cycle of death and rebirth – “Moksha”.
PHASE III : PROGRAMMING
PHASE IV : DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
Living components named “Independent Room”, “Dependent Room” and “ Silent Room” are dedicated to specific users and are designed according to different assisted care and special needs required by the users, based on their end-of-life stages.
Special detailing.
PHASE V : DRAWINGS+ PERSPECTIVES
View from the central courtyard.
Dependent Room.
Main Entrance.
View from Observatory Deck.
View from the Connec+ng Bridge.
Ark of Delight.
Silent Room.
Presenta+on Boards Layout
Sec+onal Model Details
Mechanism Layered Model
Final Model
Deepest Thanks & Appreciation to Mr Vickram Thevar Unit A: Narrative Based Deviations of Liminal Identities
BIA SEM06 2017