Hertfordshire, UK
Waugh Thistleton Architects together with landscape architects J & L Gibbons have devised an expansion plan to the existing, historic Bushey Cemetry for commercial property agents Savoy Stewart that will allow more burial spaces for the Jewish community in northwest London.
Bushey Cemetery’s design has been awarded a 2021 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
A cemetery landscape is designed for mourning, contemplation, and remembrance.
Located at a 16-acre site of outstanding natural beauty within the Bushey area of London’s green belt, the cemetery was established in 1947 and is one of the most significant Jewish burial sites in the UK.
The extension will allow for a further 8,000 burials over the next 60 years.
Designed around the existing landscape, the buildings are very much part of their setting and, when the cemetery is fully occupied, will be returned to the earth, and the site to the green belt.
A linear arrangement of buildings was designed to reflect the rituals of the Jewish burial process.
Laid out along a north-south axis, the buildings facilitate the movement of mourners.
A timber colonnade forms the processional route to the prayer halls, which are entered from the west and exited to the east before mourners are led towards the graveside.
At the heart of the development are two monolithic prayer halls, discretely embedded into a corner of the sloping site.
Built of rammed earth, this organic material, sourced from the site, defines the overall design and was chosen for its symbolic and practical sense to the Jewish faith, echoing the traditional sentiment of the deceased being laid to rest in plain wooden caskets, “returning to the earth.”
This is an ancient building method that is natural, sustainable, durable and strong. Left exposed within the rammed earth creates a calm, peaceful atmosphere.
Oak paneling, larch glulam beams, earthen tiles, and corten steel doors complete the natural, tactile material palette.
The color and texture of the earth vary across the expansive walls of the prayer halls, which allows these imposing, tomb-like structures to recede into the landscape.
Built at the lowest point of the site they sit amongst the planting and oak trees and are cradled by the larch colonnade, which masks their scale with one of human interaction.
The surprising volume of the spaces is only experienced on entering the prayer halls themselves. Located on greenfield land the flood risk was intrinsic to the design and arrangement of the buildings.
The new landscape uses sustainable drainage systems to collect surface water run-off from the highly impermeable London clay soil in a series of interconnecting swales and ponds.
The site is punctuated by a row of existing significant oak trees, a feature which is replicated in new staggered oak avenues, which radiate from the prayer halls along the main circulation paths.
These provide a linear ecological route when burial plots begin to occupy the fields in the future and provide contemplative views at each point of the process.
The sympathetic landscape solution considers the rich biodiversity of the site and uses robust, native species adapted to the heavy soil conditions.
On-site for less than two years, the project has been a 10-year journey taken alongside the organization’s trustees, the Jewish community, and planners, requiring the architects to develop an understanding of the nature of the Jewish faiths’ practice of burial.
Project: Bushey Cemetery
Architects: Waugh Thistleton Architects
Design Team: Andrew Waugh, Rachel Crozier, and Julen Perez Santisteban
Landscape Architects: J & L Gibbons LLP.
Client: The United Synagogue
General Contractor: Buxton Building Contractors Limited
Structural Engineers: Elliott Wood Partnership
Photographers: Blake Ezra, Lewis Khan, and Jim Stephenson
