Julijonas Urbonas, a PhD in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art has designed a hypothetical euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster ride meant to end a person life as humanely and euphorically as possible. The 500-meter structure is designed for its rider to experience a series of intensive motion elements that induce various unique experiences: from euphoria to thrill, and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness and, eventually, lack of oxygen supply to the brain.

The roller coaster was inspired by a quote from John Allen, former president of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company: "The ultimate roller coaster is built when you send out 24 people and they all come back dead. This could be done, you know."




"Euthanasia Coaster" is a hypothetic euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely – with elegance and euphoria – take the life of a human being. Riding the coaster's track, the rider is subjected to a series of intensive motion elements that induce various unique experiences: from euphoria to thrill, and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness, and, eventually, death. Thanks to the marriage of the advanced cross-disciplinary research in space medicine, mechanical engineering, material technologies and, of course, gravity, the fatal journey is made pleasing, elegant and meaningful. Celebrating the limits of the human body but also the liberation from the horizontal life, this 'kinetic sculpture' is in fact the ultimate roller coaster: John Allen, former president of the famed Philadelphia Toboggan Company, once sad that "the ultimate roller coaster is built when you send out twenty-four people and they all come back dead. This could be done, you know."