Cemeteries today serve far more than burial needs. They are places of contemplation, botanical beauty, environmental stewardship, and community connection.
Effective cemetery master planning must address burial capacity, evolving cremation trends, financial sustainability, historic preservation, and open space design simultaneously.
In this WLAM-inspired spotlight, we are highlighting three active examples of how BSC Group’s LA team is helping cemeteries evolve with care, creativity, and practical planning: Shrewsbury, Massachusetts; Dayton, Ohio; and the Bronx, New York.
Preserving Park Character While Planning for the Future
In Shrewsbury, MA, BSC developed the Prospect Park Cemetery Master Plan as part of the Mountain View expansion initiative. The project reimagines cemetery expansion not as a conventional grid of burial plots, but as a continuation of the town’s valued park-like landscape.
The goal is clear: maintain passive recreational space and rural cemetery character while meeting the Town’s responsibility to provide burial space for residents. The expansion prioritizes open views, integrated pathways, and landscape continuity, reinforcing the cemetery as both sacred ground and civic open space.
This approach protects the site’s passive recreational value for residents, while also meeting the Town’s obligation under state law to provide burial space while reinterpreting the rural cemetery aesthetic for the 21st century.
The Chapel Garden at Woodland Cemetery & Arboretum
At Woodland Cemetery in Dayton, OH, BSC designed The Chapel Garden as a layered botanical experience at the cemetery entrance. The garden serves multiple purposes: a place of healing, a setting for celebrations of life, weddings, and memorial events, and a welcoming green threshold for visitors.
The planting design features a four-season palette suited to Ohio’s climate. Native and adapted deciduous and evergreen trees provide structure and screening. Perennials, ornamental grasses, and groundcovers introduce texture and seasonal color, ensuring visual richness throughout the year.
Beyond aesthetics, and this, project BSC developed the Master Plan and Phase I implementation plan for Woodlawn’s remaining 49 acres that supports evolving burial practices and community use. As part of the broader expansion work, BSC helped develop road and grave layout options that respect existing site features while allowing flexibility for future phases. The master planning effort accommodates traditional lots, estate areas, scattering gardens, and cremation spaces, responding to changing customs and demographics.
The result is a cemetery landscape that feels restorative, resilient, and adaptable.
Repurposing Infrastructure to Create New Memorial Landscapes
At Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, NY, one of the most significant rural cemeteries in the United States, BSC is leading a multi-phase adaptive reuse effort that transforms underutilized internal roadways into new burial landscapes.
Rather than expanding outward, the project repurposes underutilized internal roadways into new burial landscapes. This sustainable cemetery design approach increases capacity while preserving historic character and existing tree canopy.
This is the kind of “work smarter with what you already have” strategy cemeteries increasingly need: respectful, efficient, and grounded in place.
Leadership in Cemetery Landscape Architecture
Cemetery master planning demands both technical precision and cultural sensitivity. BSC Landscape Architecture Group reflects decades of specialized experience in cemetery and memorial landscape design.
Tomer Rabinowitz, Associate and Landscape and Planning Designer. Tomer manages complex, multi-phase cemetery projects from schematic planning through design development. His expertise includes burial capacity analysis, circulation strategy, zoning integration, and adaptive reuse of existing infrastructure. At Woodlawn Cemetery and Woodland Cemetery, Tomer has led planning efforts that transform underutilized space into meaningful memorial landscapes while maintaining historic character. His collaborative, interdisciplinary approach ensures projects balance operational requirements with experiential design.
Ricardo Austrich, PLA, FASLA, Director of Landscape Architecture and Senior Associate. Ricardo brings more than three decades of experience in cemetery planning, historic preservation, and public landscape design. His portfolio includes multidisciplinary master plans and extensive work in cemetery and memorial environments. He has guided projects involving adaptive reuse, expansion strategy, burial typology integration, and long-term stewardship planning. Ricardo’s leadership ensures that each cemetery landscape respects its cultural history while adapting to contemporary burial practices and environmental responsibility.
Together, Tomer and Ricardo anchor BSC’s cemetery practice with deep technical knowledge, design rigor, and a long-term view of landscape legacy.
Designing Cemeteries for the Next Century
Modern cemetery design requires more than technical expertise. It demands sensitivity to cultural traditions, environmental responsibility, financial sustainability, and public expectations.
BSC’s cemetery planning services include:
- Master planning and expansion strategy
- Burial capacity and revenue analysis
- Adaptive reuse of existing infrastructure
- Historic preservation integration
- Botanical planting design
- Civil and site engineering coordination
- Community engagement
Cemeteries remain places of healing, beauty, reflection, and shared history. When designed thoughtfully, they strengthen communities not only as sacred ground, but as enduring open space landscapes.