Many people have suffered different kinds of losses during the pandemic, some have lost family, friends, jobs, health, just to mention a few. These losses impact their lives in different ways, but they have a common need to process their grief and heal.

This situation leads to the following question: Can Glasgow as a community heal and honour the memory of the lost ones during the pandemic through the conscious reuse of a space?

The pandemic has changed the way we relate to other people within our environment, but it has also changed the way we relate to death. Conditions of isolation have made it more difficult to go through the mourning process. That process is based on the 7 stages of grief described by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross.

The concept is a metaphor for the journey through these stages of grief as the visitor walks around the site and the aim is to provide an emotive procession that will allow the visitor to explore the cycle of grief.

The Govan Graving Docks were selected to meet physical and emotional characteristics in order to create a closer link to the community as they hold a historical connection to the people of Glasgow and the urban memory of the city. Both the history and the morphological characteristics of the site give rise to the programme, a journey through different spaces with a particular atmosphere that respond to each of the stages of grief. The use of varying kind of spaces (enclosed, semi-open and open) across different scales will help to create contrasting atmospheres reflecting each of the stages.