Franklin Park is a park in Boston surrounded by four very different and unequal neighborhoods. For this project, we were asked to create a cemetery on the southwestern side. Because the site is a public park, this project aims to create a non-traditional cemetery that does not remove a large section of the park from public use. Hugelkultur mounds made from the park’s dying trees form a tree nursery for park, street, and memorial trees. Areas for burial develop slowly over time as the logs decompose and the mounds are flattened to add depth to the existing shallow soil. Small gardens available for adoption by community members and organizations persist throughout the transformation.
The slow progression to cemetery, the continuity of the non- cemetery gardens, and the participatory nature of the nursery and gardens gives community members the time and opportunity to form attachments to the place even as it becomes a cemetery. Unlike a traditional cemetery that becomes a burden on the community once it is full, this cemetery will add future value to the park and surrounding community with soil, trees, horticultural education, and the opportunity for community building through engagement.
In my site analysis, I considered access, soil condition and tree health. The soil conditions are not ideal for traditional burial – the average soil depth is only about three feet before it hits either bedrock or water table. A significant number of trees are also dead or dying as they reach the end of their lifespans.
In my cemetery research, As I researched, I discovered a variety of interesting cemetery programming, including birdwatching, grave gardening, movie nights, and yoga. The conclusion I drew from my research was that cemeteries have so much potential for activity by living people, but that potential is limited by social norms.
For my project, I propose cutting down the trees that are dead or dying within Franklin Park and perhaps also other Boston parks and using those trees to create hugelkultur mounds in the current hospital and maintenance yard areas.
Hugelkultur mounds are made of cut logs. The decomposing wood in the mounds improves the soil for planting by releasing nutrients and retaining moisture and eventually, new soil will be created from the process.
The mounds shrink as the logs decompose, and eventually, the newly created soil can be spread out to remediate the existing soil and add depth for burial. Because this process takes time, the cemetery will expand slowly over the years, giving the soil a chance to build up and giving community members time to adjust to the idea that their park will also be a cemetery.
My design uses three basic forms – mounds, columbariums, and graves for traditional burial, all radiating from central gardens.
The mounds will function as a nursery. In the early years, they can be used to grow trees for the park and surrounding neighborhoods. A few years before they will be replaced by graves, memorial trees are planted instead. In the last year or two before they are replaced, they are used to grow flowers. When it is time for them to become graves, the plants are moved and the soil is spread out.
The nursery trees can replace the dying trees that were cut down to make the hugelkultur mounds and regenerate the park’s tree canopy, improve street canopy, addressing inequities in tree canopy in the surrounding neighborhoods, and provide the cemetery with its own supply of memorial trees. The flowers can be sold on site and across the street at Forest Hills Cemetery. The need for people to care for the nursery will create jobs and provide neighbors with employable skills. The additional income brought in by the trees and flowers can also help subsidize the costs of burial, making the cemetery more accessible for all the community members who wish to be buried there.
In addition to their financial value, the flowers grown in the cemetery create year-round visual interest, and the need for flowers for funerals can support flower arrangement classes, which will both teach people useful skills and give them more opportunities to meet their neighbors. These flowers I’ve chosen are all either flowers commonly used in funeral bouquets or flowers used in the funeral practices of specific cultures.
Over time, as the logs decompose and the hugelkultur mounds shrink, the space for traditional burial grows, moving from north to south in the current hospital area. Columbariums are installed and graves radiate outwards.
In year one, the project would look like this. Gardens and hugelkultur mounds are created in the hospital and maintenance yard areas and columbariums are built in clearings in the steeper forested area. The columbariums will be made from biodegradable material and hold biodegradable urns so that eventually, they can be torn down, the pieces can be mixed with the ashes inside, and more soil will be created in the forest.
The hugelkultur mounds are planted with trees for the nursery, and people can start planting the gardens.
The gardens are intimate spaces that can be “adopted” by community members and organizations even as they remain accessible to all. Families without yards and senior citizens in nearby retirement homes can adopt gardens for planting, homeless services and local schools can use them to provide outdoor education and horticultural training, they can serve as outdoor chapels for funeral or wedding services, and more.
This pollinator garden is maintained by Mass Audubon. It adds biodiversity and creates a space for community members to learn more about native plants and insects.
This one is maintained by ABCD Citywide Boston Hispanic Center and can be used to grow marigolds for Day of the Dead in the summer, and for other plants that remind that community of home during the rest of the year.
In a hundred years, the site has the potential to be a completely full cemetery.
The mounds will be replaced by graves, but the gardens are still there for the community.
The gardens can also be used for activities related to death, serving as spaces for communities to gather in observance of their traditions.
Because the south side is more connected to the neighbors, it remains more open for activity with less obvious cemetery uses like ash scattering and natural burial.
Because this cemetery grows slowly over time, if in a few decades people are no longer as interested in traditional burial, there is also potential for the cemetery to be less “full,” with less space for traditional burial and more space devoted to natural burial or composting if those options become more popular.
But in the end, cemeteries are not really made to endure. Eventually, those who are buried stop getting visitors and graves stop getting cared for. In another few hundred years, the space taken up by the graves will slowly be retaken by nature.
This potential future is a likely one for most cemeteries, further justifying my proposal that the cemetery be designed for impermanence, with biodegradable materials, less space devoted to traditional burial, and more space for the community. Instead of taking the park away from the community to create an inaccessible space with no future, my goal is to instead use this cemetery to add value to the future, as the living have potential that the dead do not.
JJ is a kindergartener at Brooke Mattapan when the design is built. His family lives in an apartment without a yard, but on the weekends, they visit the park and they start planting one of the gardens.JJ’s first-grade class has a bed in the school’s garden on the south side of the park, and on Wednesdays, he takes outdoor education classes there.In high school, he gets a summer job working with the trees in the nursery, learning how to prune them and how to prepare them for transplant. He works with his boss to get some trees for his neighborhood and adds some shade to the previously bare street outside his apartment.As an adult, he spends the weekends volunteering on the site and mentors the next generation of cemetery gardeners.Through his volunteering, he meets Erica, and they get married in the garden he planted as a child.JJ’s parents spent their years at the retirement home continuing to visit and care for the park through the retirement home’s garden and are buried in the cemetery when they die.After his retirement, JJ uses his park expertise to lead guided tours, teaching newer visitors and his grandchildren about the plants and the birds.When he dies, he is buried with his family in this place that he cared for and grew up with.
