Katrina Spade

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Katrina Mogielnicki Spade (born September 9, 1977) is an American designer, entrepreneur, and death care advocate. Spade is the founder of Recompose, a public-benefit corporation developing a natural alternative to conventional cremation and burial. She was awarded the Echoing Green Climate Fellowship in 2014 for her work.

Video Katrina Spade

Early life and education

Spade grew up in rural New Hampshire and was raised by a physician and physician's assistant. She told the Seattle Stranger of that time in her life, "We weren't religious, but we saw nature as somehow spiritual." She earned a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from Haverford College in Pennsylvania, then turned her focus to sustainable design while attending Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont. At Yestermorrow, Spade helped to build a Pain Mound - a compost-based bioenergy system invented by Jean Pain that can produce heat for up to 18 months. Later, while earning a Master of Architecture from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she wrote a thesis entitled "A Place for the Urban Dead", an idea for which she was awarded the Echoing Green Climate Fellowship in 2014.

Maps Katrina Spade

Urban Death Project

In considering her own mortality, Spade wanted options more that were environmentally sustainable and allowed family and friends to participate in the care of their loved one. She formulated early ideas about the possibility of human recomposition, but when she learned about the practice of livestock mortality composting, she began work to create the same option for humans. Spade founded the Urban Death Project in 2014 with a focus on developing a new system of death care called recomposition, which transforms human bodies into soil. The system is not yet recognized as a legal form of disposition in the United States.

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Recompose

In 2018, the Urban Death Project dissolved and Spade founded Recompose, a public-benefit corporation. Similar to the Urban Death Project, Recompose is developing a patent pending process that converts human remains to soil. It seeks to create a scalable and sustainable alternative to natural burial, particularly for urban dwellers.

US designer conceives a composting facility for dead bodies

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Advocacy and awards

Awarded Echoing Green Climate Fellowship, 2014
SVP Social Venture Partners Fast Pitch 1st Place and Audience Choice Award, 2016
Buckminster Fuller Prize Semifinalist, 2016 - Designs That Are Changing the World
Member of "The Order of the Good Death", an "inclusive community of funeral industry professionals, academics, as well as artists who advocate for and make possible, a more death informed society."
TED Speaker: When I Die, Recompose Me