Perceptions of the natural

Abstract

This thesis takes on the difficulty of defining a clear line that connects and separates natural and artificial in a contemporary landscape. It is a proposal for a park that addresses the image and understanding of nature. Playful, perverse, and perpetually unfinished elements use the existing infrastructure, the by-products of research facilities, land-filled grounds and the sky above as primary design materials to identify the invisible character of ongoing mediation between organic and manufactured systems. Using relationships that flow and have flowed through the site, the park invites the body and mind to navigate a complex environment and to engage with the underlying issues that form and characterize it.