Francyane Karla Lopez Duarte 2021

University of Ferrara, Italy

Verticalization as an alternative solution for cemeteries: a technical visit to the Cemitério Vertical de Curitiba

The constant population growth leads to a physical expansion of urban areas, resulting in a denser built environment with the overlapping of services to support human needs. For this reason, verticalization became necessary to optimize land use and occupation in large cities, where there is a limited amount of available land for new buildings. In this context, a building typology that has been facing these issues is the cemetery because of its increasing need of land for new burials. Besides, cemeteries represent an essential infrastructure in society, play an important role in the social-cultural function and cannot simply be abandoned. In certain cultures, contemporary society has a particular perspective of death which leads people to avoid cemeteries, and the accurate observation of this process provides a concern about these structures. As a consequence, the improvement of cemeteries has been discussed recently, not only to provide solutions for urban issues but also to reduce environmental and social impacts. There are several vertical building around the world, so this paper aims to illustrate how vertical cemeteries may represent a sustainable alternative for this type of construction. This paper reports the results of the technical visit carried out at the Cemitério Vertical de Curitiba, located in the metropolis of Curitiba (Brazil), with the project manager in 2017. It demonstrates some technical and spatial solutions to avoid the release of chemical elements on the environment and improve the well-being of visitors and users through supportive services.

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