South Haven Centre for Remembrance / SHAPE Architecture

The new South Haven Centre for Remembrance creates a new non-denominational facility for the City of Edmonton. The primary objective of the design was to memorialize moments in time and spatially capture the quality of the seasons through the interplay of light, shadow, and darkness. The design features a symbolic 13-meter tower that emerges from the prairie landscape, making reference to the existing gravesites, monuments, columbaria, and the latent memory that they embody. Our memory of visiting a cemetery is marked by time; the position of the sun, the quality of light, and the weather on that particular day. For some, it may be a solitary visit for a ceremony, for others it may be experienced through ritual visits which span the rest of their lives.