Ward 21

 Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research

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Ward 21 is a Research Facility focused on studying human decomposition in a variety of environmental settings. This project is a on a facility that the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) are opening up in January 2016, and other similar facilities in the USA. Currently these facilities meet the practical needs of the scientists that work there but they do not meet the emotional needs of this kind of work. This project sets out to address these needs as well as facilitating the body to be treated in a more respectful manner and introducing a public component to reduce the stigma around such facilities and to educate to public on what happens within these facilities.

Site

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It is proposed that this facility will be located in ward 21 of Morisset Psychiatric Hospital. Ward 21 was a maximum security ward for the criminally insane, it was opened in 1933 and abandoned in 1990. Not much is known about the facility as the documents where destroyed in an ‘accidental’ fire in the administration building.

This site was chosen for numerous reasons, practically its easily accessed from Sydney and Newcastle, its away from residential areas and the surrounding bushland can be used to conduct experiments.

When visiting this site one thing became clear  and that is the similarities between human decay and building decay – when a human dies and a building is abandoned both start to dissolve and merge into their setting and nature takes over. Leaving me asking the questions why can’t architecture facilitate biological decay instead of trying to fight it.