This thesis explores the potential for communities to become involved in efforts to develop ecologically sustainable societies. As the concept of community is often ill defined, this thesis explores traditional and interest-based ideas of community, and develops a conceptualization of a work-based community. The history and development of the Appalachian Trail is reviewed as an example of how private citizens can reshape unbuilt environments through physical work and dedication to a common goal. Through the work of maintaining a 2,100-mile hiking trail, trail managers come to share common experiences and goals, as well as developing relationships with people and places that make it possible to recognize these maintainers as a work-based community. The A.T. management community exemplifies the potential for communities to have substantive in efforts to develop more ecologically sustainable and socially equitable ways for humans to live, work, and play in built and unbuilt environments. / Master of Arts

How can architecture connect us to our environments? Is architecture responsible for connecting its user to their surrounding context? Can our spaces inform us about the world around us? There are numerous ways that humans can feel a connection to nature. But, what ways are more universal than others? What aspects of the natural world cross geographical and cultural boundaries? Perhaps, architecture can connect us to our environments by revealing the universal passing of time through natural daylighting by way of structure, materiality, and texture. As the primary instrument, daylighting will be used in this body of work to explore time on an hourly and seasonal basis. It will do this by housing two light-sensitive programs, a painting conservatory and gallery space. By pairing these programs together, the architecture will investigate time by comparing and contrasting two user types and their corresponding needs from each program. Finally, by setting the architecture in the center of a urban block, the thesis can draw upon this high contrast to reinforce the connections it has constructed and made between the user and the natural environment. / Master of Architecture

In designing a sacred space, the work should be a product not only of the mechanics of the mind but also a response of the heart, and therefore the spirit or soul that an architect must possess. For the soul is the harmony between the two. This is what gets diffused into the work, the subjectivity of which gives it its reality. The work too can then become animate with soul. Mircea Eliade believed that through symbols, the world becomes transparent and transcendence becomes visible. The religious man therefore relies on symbols to recognize sacred reality. "Divine work always preserves its quality of transparency, that is it spontaneously reveals the many aspects of the sacred," which is why the very existence of the cosmic system and everything within presents itself as a proof of divine presence.1 For the construction of a sanctuary, the goal is to be able to perceive what is sacred in the mundane, and then bringing it forth, extracting it, distinguishing it to be experienced sensually. Sacred architecture is what identifies and then exposes these hierophanies. The site is located on the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave NW and 26th ST NW in Washington DC. For the design development, the story of the first revelation of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is used as a narrative through the project. His search for meaning and retreat into nature, teaches of Islamic monasticism, the path that leads completely inward to a place with no one but God. "Every road will lead you to this sense of initiation " the light, the secret, are hidden in the place from which you set out. You are on your way not toward the end of the road but toward its beginning; to go is to return; to find is to rediscover." 2 / Master of Architecture

Suburban housing is a building type and form of development that has been neglected by many architects. Architects are responsible for designing only two percent of suburban residences. This means that the profession has largely ceded the best opportunity to be relevant and useful to ordinary people. The name itself, sub-urban, implies that the suburbs are less than or secondary to the urban typology. Suburban can also be used as an adjective to describe something which is dull and ordinary. And yet, more and more people continue to move to the suburbs each year. Since 1970, a greater percentage of the population has lived in the suburbs than in central cities or rural areas. This thesis examines why people want to live in the suburbs and the impact of suburban development on the economy, the environment and social institutions. The conclusions of this investigation are then used to redefine the current concept of suburbia as it relates to nature, community and diversity. These concepts are in turn incorporated into a prototype for a suburban housing development. The prototype is a 38 unit residential housing development on a 2-acre wooded site in a suburb 16 miles west of Washington, DC. / Master of Architecture / Suburban housing is a building type and form of development that has been neglected by many architects. Architects are responsible for designing only two percent of suburban residences. This means that the profession has largely ceded the best opportunity to be relevant and useful to ordinary people. The name itself, sub-urban, implies that the suburbs are less than or secondary to the urban typology. Suburban can also be used as an adjective to describe something which is dull and ordinary. And yet, more and more people continue to move to the suburbs each year. Since 1970, a greater percentage of the population has lived in the suburbs than in central cities or rural areas. This thesis examines why people want to live in the suburbs and the impact of suburban development on the economy, the environment and social institutions. The conclusions of this investigation are then used to redefine the current concept of suburbia as it relates to nature, community and diversity. These concepts are in turn incorporated into a prototype for a suburban housing development. The prototype is a 38 unit residential housing development on a 2-acre wooded site in a suburb 16 miles west of Washington, DC.

This thesis is the search for clarity in the relationship between essence and appearance, construction and form, necessity and possibility, object and subject. It is a reflection on the question of the nature of building. I cannot tell you that something is beautiful. I can only explain why I do what I do, and how I do it. I have tried to limit the text to a minimum, because architecture is not about words. Text is added to clarify an idea. The project is a bank made with brick in Old Town Alexandria. / Master of Architecture

Preoccupations is a creative work dealing with the subject of existence. It takes the form of a collection of poems and creative essays that deal with the subject in one way or another. There are a variety of subjects used as vehicles to pursue the overall theme, ranging from groundhogs and the desire to become one, to drug and alcohol dependency. Preoccupations also deals with the subject of death, specifically the early deaths of the speaker's friends. There are a number of questions asked in Preoccupations, few of which are able to be answered. This is an accurate reflection of the thought process of the speaker. / Master of Fine Arts

Environmental restoration is emerging as a major driver in the repair and reversal of some of the world’s most severely degraded landscape systems, with growing interest in the status and composition of restoration efforts. Although much has already been written about the theory and practice of environmental restoration, both positive and negative, hitherto the literature has tended to overlook the complexity bound up in defining restoration discourses, and perhaps more importantly, the physical, material consequences instilled through such human choice. The mutability of discourses of environmental restoration means that it can be moulded and (re-)shaped by different actors and contexts, with different values and meanings attached to ‘nature’. There exist multiple and contested natures of environmental restoration - nature(s) both in the sense o f the properties of restoration, and also that which is restored to a site. In this doctoral thesis, I demonstrate how discourses of environmental restoration are defined and interpreted, which discourses (if any) appear to dominate, and how these are mobilised to produce ‘restored nature’. Attention is also awarded to the environmental implications incurred when such discourses are played out on the ground. The research is grounded empirically through reference to the case studies o f the Eden Project (Cornwall, UK), the National Forest Company (Derbyshire, UK), and the Walden Woods Project (Lincoln, MA) and their adoption of restoration practices. Analysing the processes and practices of environmental restoration within a framework of social nature and cultural landscapes serves to destabilise the dualism distancing nature from society - a preserve of environmental ethics and philosophy - for such synergy not only highlights how ideas of (restored) nature are socially constructed, but also addresses the material production of nature, reinforcing the interactions between natural and societal actors.

Research has shown that time spent in and exposure to natural environments has numerous benefits for children, both physical and mental. At the same time, children face many barriers to obtaining time in the outdoors and today's youth spend less time outside than previous generations. Initiatives such as health care provider prescriptions for outdoor activity aim to encourage exposure to nature as a health intervention for children. In order to enhance the potential for success of programs such as these, factors influencing their implementation need to be assessed. This study aims to explore the impact that provider connectedness to nature, as measured by a validated connectedness to nature scale, has on the likelihood of utilizing a nature prescription program. This study is of descriptive correlational design utilizing a convenience sample of providers who participated in a park prescription program in the state of Vermont. Participants completed a survey that included a Nature Relatedness (NR) scale. These scores and responses were then analyzed in relationship to the number of nature prescriptions written during the program. Data analysis includes descriptive statistics, Pearson's r and Spearman's r and Multivariate MANOVA. Results from this study do not indicate a relationship between provider NR and utilization of a nature prescription program. Data from this study indicates that programs utilized by providers to promote time in nature, such as the park prescription program, may enhance provider awareness of the issue and likelihood to address the issue with their patients. This is an important finding for further initiatives aimed at increasing children's time in nature through their primary care providers.

In the 1960s a movement by the National Audubon Society encouraged growing communities to set aside a portion of undeveloped land to be used as nature centers to teach conservation and natural history while allowing people to cultivate an understanding and appreciation of nature. This research responds to the need for a greater understanding of who is visiting nature centers in the 21st century and why. A key question is whether or not nature centers have kept up with changing times and advancing technologies. No research has been conducted to determine if nature centers are still relevant today to a society accustomed to living and learning electronically in a virtual reality. In order to determine who visits nature centers and why, a questionnaire was developed and administered to Members and Non-members of the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge (FWNC) of Fort Worth, TX. It was determined that visitors to the FWNC were not representative of the general population of the surrounding area. They were older, predominantly white, and had higher education levels. Using the membership in a Friends organization as a representative population of nature center visitors, it was determined that the Non-member visitors were similar to the Members except that they were younger. Members visited the FWNC with a higher degree of frequency than Non-members, but there was no difference in degree of visitation to other nature centers. Both groups identified "lack of time" as the primary barrier to increased visitation. Members appeared to be seeking specific, educational experiences compared to Non-members who tended to seek more general, recreational experiences. Members had more specific knowledge about benefits and services that the FWNC provided the community. Overall, both groups were satisfied with their visits, with Members having a more defined set of expectations and a higher level of satisfaction. This preliminary assessment suggests that nature centers continue to be a relevant source for education, recreation and relaxation, and continue to remain a unique resource in keeping 21st century society connected to the nature world.

Living in harmony with nature is a pervasive ideology, or cultural blueprint, of how a "sustainable future,” a "good society,” and a "fulfilled life" would look like. However, this notion of harmony with nature is highly paradoxical, as consumers often want and even must dominate and control nature. The current thesis explores consumers’ desires of living in harmony with nature through a post-human analysis of how backcountry hikers negotiate tensions between utilitarian and romantic discourses of nature vis-à-vis their experience of material forces of nature. Through conceptualizing nature as an active actor in a symmetric assemblage of material and cultural entities (i.e., nature agency), this thesis contributes to our understanding of the human/nature relationship, materialism, and sustainable consumption. Findings are presenting through three interrelated themes. The first theme highlights how hikers appropriate romantic discourses by seeking harmony in a nature that is perceived as external to civilization. Noting the contradiction that hikers’ quest for being in harmony with a “romantic nature” oftentimes exposes them to higher physical dangers in material nature, the subsequent themes explore how harmony can arise when hikers have to struggle with physical dangers of nature. Focusing on physical dangers that are experienced in material nature, theme 2 finds that hikers’ relationship with nature is highly ambivalent: They strive to experience “more nature and less civilization”, but also “more civilization and less nature.” The third theme explores how meanings of nature and technology emerge from fluidly shifting assemblages, finding that the same technological resources can both distract from and enable feelings of harmony with nature. These findings contribute to consumer research by broadening our understanding of the human/nature relationship and by challenging previous notions (Canniford and Shankar 2013) that technology and civilization must always betray consumers’ experiences of “romantic nature.” Furthermore, the notions of nature agency and that no single actor can unilaterally shape the assemblage of heterogeneous entities contribute to the emerging material turn in consumer research. Finally, this post-human analysis of consumers’ relationships with nature offers theoretical and practical implications for sustainable consumption and sustainable marketing. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2014-01-31 14:58:31.326