Columbari-ya

The word columbary originally described a dovecote or set of pigeon houses. Eventually, the term was appropriated to reference niches for the placement of funerary urns (columbaria). 

This prototype experiment synthesizes both meanings by proposing that one house could serve as both a nesting space for birds and as a chamber for the cremated remains.

The idea was originally created for a project called the Capilano View Memorial Forest. Columbary-ya was developed for an exhibition that explored the relationship between our human and animal world, proposing that life and death can find modes of entwinement.

The studio is forever indebted to Lőrinc Vass for building this prototype with such care and craft.