Hållbar design för gravplatser

Abstract: A well-planned grave with a sustainable selection of plants facilitates easy maintenance for both staff and the holder of the right of burial. It also helps reduce the negative impact on the environment.As in many other areas, the environment is high on the agenda within the cemetery administration. One of the major concerns is the impact of the choice of plants for the grave. Within the industry there is a great motivation and willingness to adapt to a sustainable work mode and this has spawned a number of project works. In autumn 2009 the partnership project, “Environmental aspects of planning and maintaining graves”, was started in Movium (at The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences). This interesting subject and approach gave us the idea to this thesis.In this thesis we focus on the selection of plants and on the design of graves from a sustainable development point of view. The criteria for plant selection are durability, maintenance and aesthetics. The work leads to three specific design proposals for two different types of graves: Coffin graves and urn graves. The proposed plant selection is based on technical literature and interviews with people who have extensive experience in cemetery management and with professionals with extensive botanical knowledge.The design proposals have been created with three different themes in mind: Forrest, beach and meadow. These nature inspired themes have been chosen to seize the green character of the cemetery. Nature theme is chosen to fit into the green environment that we believe the cemetery is. Historically, the cemetery has been seen as anything between a place for grazing cattle and the park-like areas we see today. Cemeteries are increasingly used as recreational areas and seen as the lungs of the cities.The design proposals and themes in this thesis are meant as a source of inspiration. The possibilities are endless and as such it can form the basis of further work within this field.