Recompose Honored with AIGA Year in Design Award
2023/08/16
Recently the American Institute for Graphic Arts (AIGA) revealed the winners of the 365: AIGA Year in Design Awards, including Recompose (led by design principal Alan Maskin), which was honored as winner of the Social Design category. The Year in Design program celebrates designers, design teams, and their clients for creative solutions for challenges presented by businesses and organizations during the calendar year 2022. This program recognizes excellence and innovation across all categories of communication design, from print to web to service to both physical and virtual spaces.
Recompose is the world’s first full-service funeral home to provide “natural organic reduction,” also known as human composting, to the public. Designed in collaboration with Katrina Spade, founder and CEO of the Recompose public benefit corporation, the facility converts human remains into organic soil, helping nourish new life after death. Throughout the site and building, references to nature – including a mural on the exterior façade, a living green wall in the reception area, the hexagonal shape of the composting vessels, and the colors and textures within each space – highlight the link between the Recompose process and natural cycles, as well as the positive impact of this personal decision.
“Years ago, our client and collaborator, Katrina Spade, came to us with an ambitious and world-changing idea, and we’re proud to have been a part of bringing it to life,” Maskin shares. “This honor from the AIGA underscores the importance of a new kind of dialogue about death and the profundity of using one’s passing as an opportunity to leave life while making an environmentally positive impact as our final act.”
For more information about the AIGA 365: Year in Design Awards and winning projects, visit this link.
Recompose, Seattle, Washington, USA
Design Principal: Alan Maskin
Project Manager: Blair Payson, AIA, LEED® AP
Project Architect: Nick Ladd, LEED® AP
Project Architect: Bryan Samuel
Architectural Staff: Steve Lambie, Billy Guarino and Richard Lee
Recompose Founder and CEO / Collaborating Designer: Katrina Spade
Recompose Capital Projects Manager: Marlene Bailey
Recompose Research Advisor: Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, PhD
Recompose Architecture and Design Advisor: Alan Maskin
Recompose Project Manager: Erik Bondo
General Contractor: Sellen
Owner’s Representative: Veksel Consulting & Construction
Structural Engineer: TK1SC
Mechanical Engineer: Auburn Mechanical
Electrical Engineer: Sequoyah Electric
Lighting Design: Watt Lighting