What is 6 Feet Up?
... the design of a prototype architecture that incorporates the typologies of grief, mourning and memory...
... the existing state of which will be discovered through research into the past and present.
... an appropriate response to the psychology & sociology of who...
... which will be discovered through research into the past and present.
... an attempt to reconcile why.
... a desire to reforge an appropriate size of typology with an appropriate size of community.
Why is 6 Feet Up?
... because
... of the limitations of the existing typologies of grief, mourning and memory...
... because the subconscious of Korea has changed faster than the conscious can keep up with...
... because Korea increased it GDP per capita in 50 years to a value that the UK reached in 300, having immediately previously suffered from civil war, and occupation by a foreign power for 35 years...
... therefore modern Korea is separating from historical Korea very quickly.
... because many of these draw too greatly from a Western model.
... suicide is the highest cause of death in Koreans aged 19-35 and 4th overall.
... because there is no framework for counselling in Korea.
... these issues apply worldwide.
Where is 6 Feet Up?
... in Seoul, Republic of Korea...
... because the country is rapidly adapting itself to accommodate its own state of mentality rather than those of outside cultures and that of its own past...
... examples of this adaption will be discovered through research into the present...
... as opposed to examples of existing and historical typologies.
... in an appropriate place to accommodate what and why for who.
Who is 6 Feet Up for?
... Korean people
... bereaved people...
... who are, and are yet to be.
... for contemporary people...
... urban people...
... who are not served by the existing Korean response to bereavement...
...which will be discovered through research into the past and present.
How is 6 Feet Up ...
...researched?
... by remembering that contemporary society is like an iceberg – most of it lies beneath the surface and is formed over a very long period of time.
... by gathering of materiality, of topography, and of tectonics in where.
... by remembering that I am not Korean, that I cannot think like one, but that I can attempt to learn how one thinks by keeping my mind open to the worlds they create in their own image.
... by remembering that architects should be like Batman, but that sometimes being Bruce Wayne is more effective.
... by looking at existing regulations covering the typology of bereavement in Korea, and how a new typology can respond to these by using new technology.
... in the present?
... by consultation with who, where and friends of 6 Feet Up in response to contemporary formations of grief.
... by analysis of where as an examination of contemporary formations of life...
... by the assumption that contemporary expressions of the typology of living can guide an expression of bereavement...
... specifically...
... urbanisation and densification.
... occupation of the internal and external.
... the rise of the ‘...bang’ culture (Jimjilbang, PC Bang, DVD Bang etc).
... by analysis of where as an examination of contemporary formations of death...
... specifically...
... relationships and occupations of sites (war memorials, cemeteries, temples, tombs, crematoriums and hospitals) by who.
... into contemporary theory into bereavement in modern, late modern post-modern societies and Korea as potentially bypassing modern and late modern modes of thought, and the ramifications of this.
... into new, and adaptations of old, technologies of committal and analysis of their potential repercussions in psychology and society (burial, cremation, promession, aquamation, resomation etc).
... by analysis of contemporary development of bereavement typology along a similar path to that proposed by 6 Feet Up (Sky Cemetery, the Last House, the Great Pyramid, the Hanging Graveyard of Baghdad, and vertical cemeteries in existence the world over.
... in the past?
... by analysis of where as an examination of historic formations of bereavement.
... specifically...
... relationships, occupations topographies and typologies of sites (war memorials, cemeteries, temples, tombs) .
... by analysis of where as an examination of historic formations of life as overriding influences to the inherent formation of Korean typologies.
... of contemporary theory into bereavement in traditional societies.
... of historical accounts of encounters with Korean ritual.
... into the adaptations of new technology of committal in history and analysis of their repercussions in the psychology and society of the community at the time (cremation).
... into the theories of Korean grave geomancy, and its illustrative tales as representative of Korean society’s deeper relationships with mortality...
... specifically the relationship between grave and mountain and so through to Korean and mountain.
...formed?
... as a projection of the past and present into the future, guided by a desire to resolve the gaps in existing solutions.
... as direct response to research and consultation with friends of 6 Feet Up.
... through representation in the 6 Feet Up blog.
... as a real proposal, in a real site in Seoul, as a prototype which can be implemented throughout the city, and other equivalent locations in Korea.