10/06/2026
At some point in Ancient Mexico, the dead were buried in the dirt floors within the homes of the living. One kept the bodies of their ancestors close.
It’s not a given that we separate death from life. Or shall I say, “attempt to.” For without death, there would be no life. 🧡
A student design project from Madrid asks a question that might make some folks very uncomfortable:
What if deathcare infrastructure wasn't hidden away from everyday life?
"Hot to Go" reimagines Madrid's largest cemetery as a living public space where cremation heat is captured and reused to support remembrance gardens, edible landscapes, digital memorial archives, and even a heated public pool.
Before you start picturing people cannonballing into "cremation pool water," it's worth noting that the project is only speculative. But the idea behind it touches on an important question: why do we work so hard to separate the spaces of death from the spaces of life?
For many cultures the dead have remained part of daily community life. Today, standard deathcare in the West often pushes death to the edges of our comunities, and in result, our conversations.
What if it was common for cemeteries to be not just places of remembrance, but also of gathering, connection, and community? Can we begin to reimagine the infrastructure of death to be designed to benefit both the living and the dead?
Whether you find the idea inspiring, unsettling, or somewhere in between, we love projects like this because they challenge us to rethink what a cemetery can be.
Hot to Go was designed for a Bachelor In Design course– Design Studio III by Ariadna Fernández Yenes, Estrella García Escribano, Marion Isabelle Agathe Vincey and Nilsu Ozdikicioglu.
