Client: Hanse- und Universitätsstadt Rostock
Design team: Lysann Schmidt
Location: Rostock, Germany
Date: since 2020
Surface: 1.500 m2
costs: 200.000 € (without tax)
Redesigning the historic children’s burial ground at the new cemetery in Rostock was a special task in many respects. When planning a burial ground, one does not only design a classic public open space, but above all a place of arrival and security. For many, going to the cemetery is associated with pain and grief. Nevertheless, a place should be created here that above all gives one the feeling of community and clarity. We designed a place that gives the mourners the feeling that they and also the lost family member can arrive and find a home.
For the mourning process, there are benches, picnic tables, reclining furniture and playground equipment provided. A large climbing structure and individual pieces of play equipment such as kaleidoscopes and glass prisms allow children to perceive the site in their own way and thus encourage an open approach to the subject of death. In so-called light memorials, historical gravestones are made visible to visitors and preserved for the long term.
The basis for the structuring of the burial site was the location of the historical graves on the property. Based on the occupied graves and the historic structure an overall grid was developed, that will be readable at any time, as the unoccupied graves are marked with a narrow stone edge. There is a large number of well-preserved trees on the plot, which give the site its special character. At the entrance to the grave field, information boards inform about the history of the cemetery and the biodiversity on site.
At the same time, we planned the “Meadow burial field” at the West Cemetery in Rostock.