FEATURED PROJECTS
Through our design work we are provoking and unpacking diverse perspectives on the urban and social significance of death-related spatial practices and their intersections with civic life and environment. Our projects harness science and spirituality, resulting in a system that transforms our biomass into an enduring collective urban memorial for intimate individual memories.
At Arnos Vale Cemetery, we propose an ecologically beneficial infrastructure for human disposition that enhances public space while re-shaping societal understandings of our body’s connection to the earth and culture’s relationship to death...
Constellation Park is a suspended public memorial, invoking science while respecting spirituality. The system transforms our biomass into an elegant constellation of light, illuminating new civic space amidst underutilized existing urban infrastructures...
STUDIO WORK
Over the past eighteen years, a series of Rothstein’s design studios at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation have engaged the urban, social, and cultural questions engaged by DeathLAB’s research. Students have focused on urban sites throughout New York City, with architectural proposals that address the contemporary shortcomings of current funerary processes. An important part of design thinking is to instigate critical conversation about future possibilities.
