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Evolution towards park cemeteries continues

For years now, a change has been noticeable in the perception and experience of cemeteries, the evolution to so-called park cemeteries. A park cemetery is still a place where tranquillity, contemplation and remembrance are paramount, but where there is also more room for social interaction and soft recreation in a green context. Outside its purely funerary context, a park cemetery therefore has a more public, but somewhat subdued, character. People regularly come to maintain a loved one’s grave, meet each other or even take a leisurely stroll. Redesigning a cemetery into a park cemetery strengthens its public and social character in order to improve the area’s functioning and integration within its urban or rural framework.

In many Flemish municipalities, the cemetery is an open space close to a town centre, but the opportunity is underused to include it as a stepping stone within the green-blue network by transforming it into a park cemetery. Nevertheless, in recent decades we have realised more than thirty projects of this kind and in the coming years we will continue to work enthusiastically on these design challenges, currently including park cemetery projects in Knokke, Wevelgem, Laarne, Kalken, Dilbeek, Destelbergen, Heusden, Nijlen, Bevel and Kessel.

OMGEVING