The unseen Wilderness - reconnecting humans with nature in interior spaces

Abstract

In response to the challenges related to implementing natural objects in architectural designs, this practicum proposes recreating the Wildness (Cronon 1996), which means the experience of nature, as an alternative way to connect humans with nature in the built environment. Reviewing Wildness through the lenses of Martin Heidegger’s Being-in-the-World and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology, nature is not perceived by preserving and observing natural objects like plants and water but by the embodied experience. Edmund Burke’s Sublime and Stephen Kellert’s Biophilia theories are examined through the idea of Wildness to identify common spatial characteristics of nature. Adopting Peter Zumthor and Juhani Pallasmaa’s phenomenological design approach that recreates the embodied experience of a place through architectural elements that constitute a building, this practicum tests identifying the Wildness in different natural settings with specific senses, feelings, and spatial conditions to inform the designs of materials, light, scale, movement, and details in three hypothetical interior spaces. The investigation also considers how the design elements may evoke the memory and imagination of nature to deepen the embodied experience and connect humans with nature.