Spade says she doesn’t want to stop anybody from being buried or cremated, if that’s what they want to do. But she says that composting provides a method that is both environmentally friendly, and meaningful in a way that other methods might not be for some people. “Honestly I think what the system is providing is really simple but very deep meaning – when you die you can grow new life. It’s as simple as that.”

For Seidel, that return to the earth is the key. “I’m a gardener, I love gardening, I love being outside and I love my dirt. It seemed to me to be so gentle, just a gentle way of calmly and gently and non-violently returning back to the earth.” Seidel says that she almost thinks of it as a strange kind of health resort. “I don’t lay in my dirt in my backyard, I’m not that much of a weirdo, but sometimes I’ve thought about the concept of a spa with really clean dirt,” she says. “Wouldn’t that be pleasant to be laying in some warm sterile soil and resting in it? That’s kind of how I see composting – sort of like a spa experience for the dead.”

Composting layers



Functionally, the Urban Death Project is less like a spa and more like a farm. Composting large bodies has been done before – those bodies just haven’t been human. There’s a lot of research and experience among cattle ranchers and farmers for composting the bodies of their large farm animals, and it’s work that Spade was able to look at when designing her system. People might baulk at the idea of using mechanisms designed for cattle carcasses on humans, but it’s a system that is well understood and tested. And Spade’s design for the Urban Death Project is certainly a bit more refined than your average livestock composting heap.

The Urban Death Project system would be housed in a three-storey building, with the composting segment divided into three 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 family can gather. Because the body is meant to compost, it isn’t treated with any of the embalming fluids or chemicals that a body intended for burial might be.