ABSTRACT

While the hospice movement continues to expand, increasingly infl uencing palliative care treatment in mainstream hospitals, ethical issues are raised around the time and conditions in which people die. In turn these raise questions as to how design can shape a sense of privileged ritual and ethos within what are sometimes perceived as functional and medicalised buildings. It may no longer be enough simply to add a chapel or a sanctuary space to a conventional residential setting; somehow the hospice in its entirety has to be imbued with a sense of place and occasion. However, modernism itself has had a problem with accommodating ritual, especially rituals associated with death. Nevertheless many hospices and related initiatives such as the Maggie’s Centres are now creating buildings and interiors which foster hope and human communion and bring assurance to people and a sense of meaningful time and appropriate ending.