Cemetery Design is about more than just a place to lay a grave. It’s a vibrant celebration of life, family, history and individuality, integrated into a shared community. This requires a unique set of skills.
WC Fry Design works with religious cemeteries, helping them with master plans, extensions and new sections. We also work on accessible cemetery design.
Master Plan
Cemetery master plans are the primary roadmaps for a cemetery. They help guide the future and provide a framework for achieving long term goals. They should be sensitive to the cultural and religious needs of a cemetery while providing the best use of land and improving overall aesthetics.
A key element of the plan is identifying the existing burial capacity, as well as potential expansion areas. This allows for proper planning of future burials and demonstrates a cemetery’s permanency to municipal planning boards.
Promoting alternatives to traditional grave burials like urn interment and double depth interments can also reduce the need for burial space. Furthermore, it is important that a master plan works with the natural systems of the site. Examples of this include infiltration and retention structures that improve water quality, reversing the effects of runoff by converting impervious surfaces to green infrastructures, and creating habitats that support species diversity.
Landscape and Architecture
The cemetery landscape design should be thoughtful and respectful of the dead. It is also important that the landscape fits in with the needs of the community. This can be done by taking into account things like religious and cultural traditions and making sure that the cemetery is easy to navigate for people with disabilities.
Grass types and planting are also important for a cemetery. The use of flora that would have grown in the area during its earliest days can help create a unique place and add biodiversity. This is especially true in historic areas, where a diverse ecosystem may be lost to conventional grasses.
Good cemetery design adds value and increases revenues. Burials in scenic areas or near parks and memorials often command premium prices over standard lawn burials. This is because they provide a greater sense of history and tradition, as well as the opportunity to share an important part of the local culture with visitors.
Accessibility
In addition to burial spaces, a cemetery needs to provide access throughout the grounds for visitors. A well-designed layout includes paved pathways that are level and well-maintained with a surface material that provides stability and traction. In addition, walkways should be positioned at an appropriate height for wheelchair users or individuals with mobility impairments to navigate easily.
Inscriptions on headstones are deeply personal and may include names, dates or meaningful quotes. It is important that they are designed and installed with an understanding of cultural and religious practices.
The entrance “boulevard” is typically a divided road at its intersection with the approach road (public road) and supports one-way traffic for its entire length. Cemetery roads are typically asphalt, allowing for easy driving with an appearance complementary to the landforms and topography of the site. They provide access to family mausoleums, committal service shelters and burial areas as well as service and maintenance traffic routes. They should not interfere with the flow of pedestrian traffic throughout the cemetery.
Signage
Cemetery signs need to be carefully designed in order to blend in with the surroundings. They should impart a feeling of serenity and permanence, while reflecting a high degree of durability with a minimum of maintenance requirements.
As with all interpretive and informative signage the space available on the signs needs to be carefully limited, with language limits strictly followed. However, additional information not subject to size restrictions may be incorporated in digital formats on web pages linked with the physical sign via QR codes and mobile phone applications.
Directional pedestrian signs for Jewish cemeteries and mass grave sites typically do not face roads but are accessed by foot paths from roads, with destinations recognized on the basis of destination recognition rather than route decisions and monitoring (elements of wayfinding). In this case the guidelines for aiding wayfinding include recommendations for the identification sign to closely match the directional road signs which lead to the site. A proposed sign for the old cemetery in Rohatyn (Ivano-Frankivsk oblast) is shown here, using similar text sizes, corner radii, arrow shape and typeface to those of the directional road sign.