Day 032, 5 March 2026
Rendering demonstration · proposed narrative placement. The diary retains the existing AI-edited sample. The linked academic contribution is an AI draft.
My presentation is tomorrow. I found out that I have an extra day to get it together and make it strong. I met with my supervisor yesterday, and I am still stressed because I have not found a site. He described a thesis that is very specific to a site and another that is more theoretically driven and speculative. I have identified lots of disconnect and issues, and I am trying to take a theoretical stance towards them. “It's not so much program-driven as it is approach-driven, although the program itself is also quite unique.” I am interested in neuroarchitecture, sensory and phenomenological spaces, biomaterials and computational design in construction. But I do not know how biomaterials work, and I do not want to frame the project so that I am stuck with a claim I cannot make. Neuroarchitecture and creating sacral space are the greater points for me now.
This is a secular programme with accommodations for different spiritual and cultural needs, but it “will definitely not attract all types of people”. I am trying to reinvent the relationship we have with death. I am not interested in conventional built form, but I do not have a design vocabulary here. I am struggling with graphics and with what the built form should be, and I do not know the extent that I am trying to design for. A(rt)sylum is a large body of research from my honours year that I can bring into the theoretical approach. Its heterotopic programming and liminal spatial experiences give me a philosophy for healing space. I want something different from other things, but “somewhat strangely familiar or transmuted” so that a person questions what they are experiencing. That first conversation about speculative work had made the far-fetched possibilities exciting to me.
Investigation excerpt · Liminality, comfort and discomfort · opening position · 5 March · AI draft
The early Dreamscape aspiration joined beauty, liminality and awe to a funerary journey for both the deceased and the living. It asked how architecture might make death's fragmented arrangements more meaningful, while giving grief a setting in which its changing character could be felt. Those terms initially gathered qualities the project wanted to pursue rather than a single finished theory. Earlier A(rt)sylum work had already explored how scale, silence, obscurity, nature and a sense of protected threat might intensify an encounter with space. The architectural task here is to carry that attraction to the strange and the beautiful into a place whose routes, ceremonies and ordinary use remain workable.
End of investigation excerpt
I am lacking graphics. I have posed the question of a living building that “held and fed off the deceased”. I do not know if that is too sinister, or if it is the ultimate return to life. I want to keep biomaterials in the investigation, but I do not know enough about them to make them the focus. I also have an image in mind of a utopian, organic vertical greenscape that feels otherworldly and contrasts its context, but I worry that it is only what I want the project to look like. I do not want the visual argument to be solely ecological. Return to nature matters, but I want colour and something “ethereal, sublime, otherworldly, liminal”.
Everything is everywhere: Obsidian, browser tabs, PDFs, Zotero, handwritten notes, phone images, my iPad and Heptabase. I am really frazzled, and I have still not solidified a site. When an outline makes the programme the core of the thesis, I have to correct it: “that is not how my thesis is structured.” I am exploring neuroarchitecture, heterotopia and liminality through a programme of grief, while also trying to reinvent our relationship with death and grief programmatically. In my oral draft I call it “a speculation of approach to programme”. The approach is philosophical and strategic. Ritual, memorial and grief integration remain the three programme parts.
In the oral draft I return to “the antithesis to this project is a lonely and forgotten grave”. I am drawn to alternatives to traditional graves, perhaps vertical or linear burial, cremation or mausolea. I favour a crematorium partly because it is what I know, but I do not want to take a position against traditional burial within isiZulu belief. I want to frame alternatives beautifully in the hope that perspectives might evolve towards them. I have three site criteria: demographic diversity, proximity to water for possible ash release, and urban visibility and access. I have mapped intersections between the N2 and rivers and looked for plots large enough for the programme without isolating it from community life. I would prefer urban KwaDukuza, but I am struggling to get information. eThekwini has more available data and a stronger land-pressure case. I still do not have a confirmed site.
I have been looking at water rituals, death rituals and religious beliefs in the local context because I want community-led criteria for the programme. I read an article with Zulu respondents describing different attitudes to cremation, and I am putting extracts into my slides. Some reject it strongly because of beliefs about the body and ancestors, while another supports it. I know from Muslim family and friends that burial has particular requirements, and I have made a brief search into Jewish practice. I am trying to argue for dignity and offer an alternative people might choose. I am unsure how a vertical cemetery, crematorium or mausoleum could respond to these different practices.
Literature excerpt · Perceptions of cremation as an alternative burial system
Zondi and Zwane (2014) · author manuscript, PDF p. 10
“I support the idea of cremation. I believe that the spirit is more important than the body.”
End of literature excerpt
In a conversation with Gustavo I told him I was not really interested in buildings. I was thinking about Richard Serra, installations and landscape-led spatial pieces. He recommended Walkscapes. I am still unsure what I want to do, but that possibility feels different from what I have done before.
Decisions and intentions
Lead the Review 1 argument with the theoretical and experiential approach while retaining the three-part grief programme.
Use diversity, water relation, and public visibility and access as provisional criteria for comparing sites.
Offer dignified alternatives to traditional burial without claiming authority to change another community's rites.
Fleeting intentions
- Investigate biomaterials and construction before treating them as strategies.
- Show how the approach could inform spatial conditions and the programme.
- Keep the site question visible in the Review 1 presentation.
Small rendering controls · Figure cards and collage contents
