The arena of interchange

Abstract

Nature is often considered a site of pristine perfection existing outside of human interaction. It is this notion that has led humanity to draw away from the environment and has encouraged the continual degradation of the Earth today. This exploratory research investigates the world as a series of permeable and impermeable boundaries – a shifting interwoven-web of matter, where all things are drawn together. Nature is to be understood as the continual arena of interchange between all the things of the world. Humanity and all of its constructs are merely a subset embedded within the greater reality of the physical world. This practicum examines the phenomenological ways in which humanity is entwined within the natural world, with implications for how this concept may be applied to the field of landscape architecture. The result is an open-ended design for a park and interpretive center for Gillis Quarries, in Garson, Manitoba.