Composting layers

Functionally, the Urban Death Project isless like a spa and more like a farm. Composting large bodies has been donebefore – those bodies just haven’t been human. There’s a lot of researchandexperience among cattle ranchers and farmers for composting the bodies of theirlarge farm animals, and it’s work that Spade was able to look at when designingher system. People might baulk at the idea of using mechanisms designed forcattle carcasses on humans, but it’s a system that is well understood andtested. And Spade’s design for the Urban Death Project is certainly a bit more refinedthan your average livestock composting heap.

The Urban Death Project system would behoused in a three-storey building, with the composting segment divided intothree main regions. The top layer consists of a bed of sawdust and wood chips.It’s where the body is laid during the ceremony, and where friends and familycan gather. Because the body is meant to compost, it isn’t treatedwith any of the embalming fluids or chemicals that a body intended for burialmight be.

Beneath the top layer is a set ofcomposting bays, and each body eventually settles down into one as it slowlydegrades. This decomposition region is the largest part of the setup. Theprocess is collective and continual: as older bodies descend into the core, newbodies are added on top. At the bottom is a layer for screening and sorting,sifting out whatever might have descended all the way to the bottom, andharvesting the rich compost that the bodies have generated. It would take a fewmonths for each body to find its way there, into the finished compost, and, asthe Urban Death Project website says, “This compost is sacred, both its pastand its potential.” Family members and friends are encouraged to take some ofthis sacred compost with them, to use in their own gardens. What is left willbe used in city parks. “In this way, the dead are folded back into the fabric of the city,”the websitesays.

The idea of your body being compostedalongside others might not sit well with some. But Seidel doesn’t mind the ideaof being without a single, specific tombstone or urn. After all, she says, whatultimately is the point? “So somebody can say, ‘There’s Grace! She’s stillliving, I mean she’s dead, but there she is!’” she says. “We commingle withother human beings and animals our whole lives, we share everything. I hopepeople remember me by photos, by things I’ve said, by books I’ve written, Ihope that’s how people will remember me, not by a pile of ashes or a pile ofdirt, but by good memories –because that’s the only way we can live forever.”

The system is designed to be able to take alarge number of bodies, but Spade is planning on limiting it to two a day –giving enough time for a ceremony in the morning and one in the evening.“Putting more than that seems to be pushing it and there’s no reason to dothat.”

Because, really, the Urban Death Projectisn’t just a system for the disposal of bodies. Spade wanted to design a placewhere people could have funerals, and celebrate the lives of those they havelost. “People like to create and tweak their own rituals,” she says, “so I lovethe idea that we could create a framework for ritual that isn’t set instone, but gives someone a space for ritual.”

And when it comes to convincing people thatcomposting is a legitimate option, both Spade and Seidel say that it hasn’tbeen as hard as you might think. Seidel doesn’t have any children to convinceof her decision to have her body composted, but she says that everyone she’stalked to about it has ultimately accepted the idea. Even her best friend – whowas initially surprised by Seidel’s plan – has accepted her decisions. When theday of Seidel’s funeral arrives, her loved ones will be part of a very natural –andpersonal –send off.