The Future Cemetery has announced the winner of the 2016 Design Competition: “Future Dead: Designing Disposal for Both Dead Bodies and Digital Data.”Sylvan Constellationby Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation DeathLAB and LATENT Productions envisages a network of memorial vessels transforming biomass into an elegant and perpetually renewing constellation of light, illuminating woodland pathways.(Picture Attached) The Sylvan Constellation team, based in New York, won a £5,000 cash prize and a month long Summer 2016 residency during which they will research the historic 42-acre Arnos Vale Cemetery and work with the University of Bath’ s Centre for Death and Society as well as the Pervasive Media Studio at the Watershed.The aim is to work towards a feasible design for a future prototype.Dr. John Troyer, Director of the University of Bath’s Centre for Death and Society and co-founder of the Future Cemetery says: “The Sylvan Constellation design by Columbia University’s GSAPP DeathLAB and LATENT Productions in New York City is an outstanding mix of both respectful disposition for human remains and longer term thinking around the disposal of digital data. The proposal captured the Future Cemetery design competition’s larger themes by presenting a mix of different sustainable technologies. It is also a great opportunity for Columbia University’s DeathLAB, LATENT Productions in New York City, the University of Bath’s Centre for Death and Society and Arnos Vale Cemetery to collaborate. By working together on this project, collaborators will establish networks for longer-term projects involving innovative, sustainable design around end-of-life planning. The collaboration will also demonstrate how Arnos Vale Cemetery is a sector leader in creating new possibilities for heritage site cemeteries while continuing to operate as a working cemetery. This is an exciting time to be working on design projects that fully embrace topics like death, dying, and dead bodies and I very much look forward to seeing collaborations like this develop.”