Book excerpt: Providing much-needed focus on hospice projects in the context of unprecedented rates of societal ageing, this new reference book presents an overview of major recent developments in this rapidly evolving building type. The authors present an overview of the historical origins of the contemporary hospice and the diverse variations on the basic premise of hospice care, and offer a series of case studies of exemplary hospices. The most innovative work in this area over the past decade has been in Japan, the US, Canada and the UK, and the authors describe and analyze examples both as individual projects and as comparable yet differing approaches. Hospice Architecture will be essential reading for anyone involved in the planning, design and construction of hospices.