CASE STUDY
ROSEBUD TRIBAL VETERAN’S CEMETERY
Fabricon is no stranger to working with tribal groups throughout the United States and Canada. The Rosebud Tribal Veteran’s Cemetery Committal Shelter project had the dual challenges of creating a functional, permanent structure that could hold up to the harsh weather conditions of the Northern Plains and to be a place to honor the funeral traditions of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.
Located in Mission, SD on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation the Rosebud Tribal Veteran’s Cemetery was the United States’ first ever Tribal Veteran’s Cemetery and was made possible by a nearly 7-million-dollar grant awarded to the tribe. A sizable part of that grant went to the Committal Shelters construction. The sole purpose of the shelter was to enable the Sioux’s
FRAME SUPPORTED TENSILE STRUCTURE
traditional funeral practice of allowing the decedent’s body to remain under the open sky to give their spirit time to leave so they do not become trapped underground when their body is buried.
For this project, Fabricon was a part of a conglomerate of varying organizations to help bring this form into reality. Blackwell Structural Engineers was the lead engineer firm on the job because of the unique, complicated shape of the shelter’s frame. It took inspiration from traditional Sioux tipi designs, but incorporated in the twist, of having seven non-uniform metal pole lengths and four-sided trapezoid fabric panels. The poles converge from two different circles to a central point inside a steel drum, the lower one featuring a tilted oculus window to see a glimpse of the sky above.
