Allison Rose Crowley (MArch 2016) selected for the AIA Emerging Professionals Citizen Design Competition

Allison Rose Crowley's (MArch 2016) Urban Orchard Project: A New Option in Funerary Practice has been selected for the AIA Emerging Professionals Citizen Design competition.  The Urban Orchard Project combats that confinement by letting death sprawl through a new kind of funerary ceremony that establishes public intimacy and fosters community. The goal is to draw awareness of death and grief into the heart of the city while diminishing land use and interred toxins from traditional burial, as well as chemicals expelled from cremation processes. Using the Urban Orchard website interface, an individual can plan and document their burial preferences. Urban Orchard personnel assist in pre-planning, anticipating difficult conversations and decisions usually left to the bereaved, who often become victims to the up-selling funeral industry.

Read about the full project here