At the beginnings of this thesis, the importance was solely focused on the design of an independent multipurpose theater and the transitions between the public area and backstage. As the year and project progressed, it changed to become a realization and study of architectural experiences within a space. After choosing a site within the Snoqualmie National Forest in Seattle overlooking Lake Serene, decisions were made to design a theater that would not hinder the natural landscape but immerse the audience in it. Years of backpacking, camping, and hiking, I have personal experiences and memories of walking through the shafts of light shining through the canopies of the trees or feeling the dampness that sticks to clothes as you roam through the fog rolling off the mountains. The orientation and exterior choices were made as to not take away from an audience member's experience of the natural surroundings of the area. Blending the building within the mountain hides it from view as to not over take the landscape behind it, the bridge connects the two mountains to each other and the building itself creates an axis towards the lake. The movement through the lobby was designed as a natural progression towards the view as a canopy of timber surrounds the audience, mimicking the trees outside. How we perceive architecture is how we experience it. Creating a space that would not only flow with its natural environment but also have movement inside to assist each individual, whether it is a visitor, stagehand, technician, or performer was my end goal. Focusing my efforts on the visitor, I was able to learn the importance of moments and the simplicity of details. Taking ultimately what Juahani Pallasmaa is quoted saying that "the architectural experience calls for the senses of balance, movement, orientation, continuity, time, self, and existence." / Master of Architecture

How to design with empathy? "The very essence of architecture consists of a variety and development reminiscent of natural organic life. This is the only true style in architecture." Alvar Aalto For me architecture has the power to enhance human's lives. Our beautiful world needs a fine and delicate touch to modify their nature and abstract their essences without changing its soul. The focus of this thesis is to empathize with nature and use it as an instrument to heal the mind and provide comfort to the body. The empathy of architecture with the users and the environment is a key to provide healing. For that reason, the architecture tends to create more than a building; it also creates it's own spirit. This project is a Cancer Treatment Center located in the Andes of Peru, which purpose is to response to the emotions and needs of the patients and staff. Cancer is a complex disease, which can make the patient feel lost in the world. The interplay with nature will create a healing environment and a spiritual retreat, which creates relief and connection with the universe. The building provides the users places to breath deeply, think and connect with each individual belief. The design looks for a natural organic plan, which takes advantage of the light and the surroundings. The green design works as a placebo for the patients, which are passing through theses difficult stages. Following the new trends and trying to separate of the idea of a mega hospital, the center is small in scale, but it has a program, which provides care and treatment at the same time. The walls are strong and solid to show the support and protect the inhabitants, but they are also flexible to blend with the high mountains in the horizon. It also has a green oasis, which is the heart of the project that runs from the beginning to end and merged with the natural slope land. The culture plays an important role in the planning of the design. Adjusting to the customs and beliefs, the building respects the vernacular architecture, and gets inspiration of traditional materials and construction methods that the Inca's empire used like adobe and stone. / Master of Architecture

Environmental decision-making is a tournament of competing conservation agendas in which some values and beliefs are held up and exalted, others are dismissed and ignored, and still others are implicit and unnoticed. Stakeholders compete in the tournament to advance their value systems through the science they advocate or practice, through the constructs of environmental quality they use or study, and through the management goals they champion. It is our contention that participants who hope to compete successfully in this tournament should understand the rules of the game, which includes recognizing the values and ambiguities of the language used to discuss and describe nature - in particular the terms used to describe ecological conditions that become the goals and policies of forest management - and acknowledging the "middle nature". / Master of Science

Cette thèse ambitionne de comprendre la dimension métaphysique de la crise écologique contemporaine. Pour ce faire, nous analysons d’abord ce que nous considérons comme les deux fondements métaphysiques de cette crise : d’une part l’éloignement progressif de la subjectivité vis à vis de la nature et d’autre part l’incapacité, après la révolution transcendantale kantienne, à penser la nature indépendamment de son rapport au sujet qui la pense. Nous signalons ce tournant transcendantal, où la nature est devenue une nature pour l’homme plutôt qu’une nature d’avant l’homme, comme le moment décisif de la séparation entre sujet et nature. Puis, nous examinons, à partir de la Naturphilosophie de Schelling et de l’ontologie de la nature du dernier Merleau-Ponty, les tentatives des philosophies de la nature de repenser le rapport entre sujet et nature, afin de sortir des impasses où la philosophie transcendantale avait mené. Enfin, nous esquissons, à partir des travaux de Whitehead, Simondon et Deleuze, une pensée non anthropocentrique et non-dualiste de la nature, où c’est la nature qui vient à la pensée plutôt que d’être subsumée sous les catégories a priori d’un sujet qui la déterminerait. Nous défendons l’idée qu’une telle pensée de la nature, en proposant un constructivisme respectueux qui « pousse au milieu des choses » (Deleuze), est susceptible d’être à la hauteur des défis écologiques actuels et du nécessaire tournant écologique de la pensée qui s’impose. / This thesis aims to consider the metaphysical dimension of the current ecological crisis. By narrowing down the crisis to its metaphysical components, we analyze what we identify as its main source: the growing distancing between nature and thought, which leads to our incapacity to think nature on its own terms. We argue that both the modern bifurcation of nature and Kant’s transcendental revolution are at the base of this distancing between nature and thought. And yet, limited scope of these approaches turned out to be prolific. They inspired philosophies of nature to develop a very fertile ground to think nature and the future of philosophy’s relation to nature after transcendental philosophy. It is these philosophies of nature that we seek to explore in the second moment of our research. We examine Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and the later Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with philosophy of nature, in order to locate the way in which they try to overcome certain limits of transcendental philosophy’s approach to nature. Finally, after tracing certain elements from Whitehead’s and Deleuze’s philosophy of nature, and its relevance for thinking nature in a non-anthropocentric nor dualistic way. We locate in these philosophies of nature a way of thinking where it is nature that comes to thought, and not the transcendental subject that determines or constitutes nature by subsuming it under universal concepts. This thought of nature assumes itself as constructivist, but it is a special type of constructivism, one that « grows in the midst of things » (Deleuze). One such thinking, we defend, would be able to live up to the challenges raised in an age of ecological crisis.

L’humain moderne vit une transformation de son environnement et de son mode de vie qui impactent la façon dont il peut vivre des expériences de nature au quotidien. Or, ces expériences de nature sont d'une grande importance pour le bien-être et la santé des individus. Ce sont des phénomènes complexes, ancrés dans un contexte environnemental, mais aussi socio-culturel, qui reposent sur des composantes étroitement mêlées que sont les émotions, les souvenirs, les connaissances, mais aussi tous les stimuli sensoriels perçus. Parmi les sens mobilisés, l’odorat, de par son importance mémorielle et émotionnelle, semble jouer un rôle à part dans la relation que tisse l’humain à la nature. C’est à ce rôle de l’olfaction dans l’expérience de nature, à cette part olfactive de l’expérience, que s’intéresse cette thèse s’articulant autour de trois axes de recherches et de réflexion. Dans un premier chapitre, ce manuscrit aborde comment caractériser la part olfactive de l’expérience de nature d’un point de vue individuel. La réflexion de ce chapitre se base sur la mise en œuvre et l’analyse des réponses à un questionnaire articulant entre eux l’olfaction, l’identité et les usages sensoriels d’espaces de nature déclarés par les individus. Dans le deuxième chapitre, c’est la façon dont l’expérience olfactive de nature s’ancre dans un environnement et un contexte qui est abordée, et comment cet ancrage influence la façon dont l’individu vit et décrit son expérience olfactive. La réflexion de ce chapitre s’appuie sur des témoignages recueillis lors de parcours olfactifs commentés et des questionnaires in situ. Enfin, en se basant sur les résultats des études précédentes, le troisième et dernier chapitre s’intéresse à la façon dont l’expérience olfactive de nature peut avoir un rôle transformateur sur l’individu dans le cadre particulier des environnements restaurateurs. En guise de conclusion, ce manuscrit aborde des réflexions, des ouvertures théoriques et pratiques, et des applications que peuvent apporter les résultats du travail de thèse, notamment la place que le sensoriel, l’incarné et l’olfactif pourraient prendre à l’avenir dans la façon de penser et d’enrichir l’expérience de nature. / Modern humans are currently experiencing a transformation of their environment and of their way of life that are impacting the way they can experience nature in their daily life. These experiences of nature are of great importance for the well-being and health of individuals. They are complex phenomena, anchored in an environmental context, but also socio-cultural, which are based on closely intertwined components that are emotions, memories, knowledge, but also all the sensory stimuli perceived by the human body. Among the senses mobilized, the sense of smell, by its memory and emotional importance, seems to play a singular part in the relationship that weaves the human to nature. The work conducted in this thesis, articulating around three axes of research and reflection, concerns this role of the olfaction in the experience of nature. In a first chapter, we discuss how to characterize the olfactory part of the experience of nature from an individual point of view. The thought developed in this chapter is based on the implementation and the analysis of the answers from a questionnaire linking together the olfaction, the identity and the sensory uses of spaces of nature declared by the individuals. In the second chapter, we addressed how the olfactory nature experience is embedded in an environment and in context, and how this anchor influences how the individual lives and describes their olfactory experience. The reflection of this chapter is based on testimonies gathered from commented olfactory walks and in situ questionnaires. Finally, based on the results of previous studies, in the third and last chapter of this thesis, we focus on how the olfactory experience of nature can have a transformative role for the individual, and particularly in the context of restorative environment. To conclude, we discuss the theoretical and practical openings, and applications that the results of the thesis work can bring, and particularly the place that sensory, embodied and olfactory experiences might take in the future in the way of thinking and enriching experiences of nature.

Modern Western Culture (MWC) is based in a materialist and mechanistic ontology that has marginalized spiritual relationality with the natural world. Awe of the Earth once maintained respectful relations between humans and Nature, where shared community existence was a primary concern. Through the rise of the MWC, reverence for the spirit of the Earth has gradually been lost and has altered the way humans situate themselves in the world. Many claim that as the divide between humans and Nature grows, significant barriers to thoughtful and sustainable ways of living have emerged, and reconnecting, or healing this divide is essential in the movement toward environmental sustainability. To address this divide, this research uses the reflective and iterative processes of action research together with feminist post-structural analysis to examine barriers to human-Nature relations at a spiritual level. It explores dominant discourses that act on middle years students and determine what is possible for student-Nature relations in a public school setting. The dominant discourses are embedded in three main themes: role of the city, social acceptance, and technology. Discourses within each theme have been deconstructed, identifying how they are reproduced or disrupted, the implications of adopting the discourses, and how alternatives may be encouraged in school to support spiritual relations with Nature. This research takes a small step toward broadening the possibilities of how people relate with Nature by including spiritual relations with Nature, and begins to erode a clearly identified barrier to achieving sustainability.

Cette thèse procède de la genèse chez l’enfant de l'idée de nature qui induit les politiques d'aménagement du territoire, de l'espace et de protection de la nature. La première partie s'attache à rendre compte de la dimension culturelle de l'idée de nature, par une histoire de l’enseignement de la nature à l’école, par les travaux des anthropologues de la nature, et par une histoire de l'émergence de la prise en compte du contexte et du paysage dans les politiques publiques de la recherche urbaine en France depuis 50 ans. Elle se conclut par l’identification de la demande sociale de nature. La deuxième partie trace la genèse de l’idée de nature chez l’enfant, totémiste à sa naissance puis immédiatement naturaliste dès qu’il se sent aimé, et animiste lorsqu’il pense le monde comme finalisé à la satisfaction de ses désirs. Elle souligne l’importance de l’éducation et du cadre de vie sur la transformation du naturalisme enfantin en une représentation moins finaliste de l’idée de nature et suggère l’intérêt d’accompagner les fondements affectifs de la représentation du monde de l’enfant par une pratique concrète et sensorielle de l’espace. En conclusion, nous invitons dans la troisième partie les concepteurs, à parcourir ce chemin et offrir en interprète à leurs affectataires une pensée sauvage de l’architecture et des paysages pour contribuer à la reconstruction nécessaire d'une idée de nature reterritorialisée, concrète, et affectivement responsable. Cette perspective se traduit par la proposition de structuration d’un Plan National du Paysage pour construire une culture du paysage sur de nouvelles bases, en particulier esthétiques. / This thesis stems from the genesis at child age of the idea of Nature, a process that induces policies for land settlement, for space planning, or for the protection of nature. The first part accounts for the cultural dimension of the idea of nature, building upon a history of how nature has been taught about at school, the work of nature anthropologists, and a history of how landscape has been taken into consideration by town planning public research policies in France in the past 50 years. The conclusion of this part identifies the social demand for nature. The second part traces the genesis of the idea of nature in the child, who is totemist at his birth, then naturalist as soon as he feels himself loved, then animist when he thinks the world as finalized for the satisfaction of his needs. This part underlines the importance of education and living environment in the process of transformation of child’s naturalism into a less finalized representation of the idea of nature, and suggests it is of interest to accompany the affective foundation of the child’s representation of the world by a concrete and sensory practical experience. In the third and conclusive part, we invite the designers to walk down the path of living a wild idea of architecture and landscape planning and share it with their beneficiaries, in order to contribute to the necessary rebuilding of an idea of nature being territory-aware, concrete, and affect-responsible. This perspective is rendered by the proposal of setting up a National Landscape Plan aiming at building the landscape culture on new foundations, in particular for aesthetics.

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La dimension environnementale des programmes d’urbanisme s’affiche et se présente comme une garantie de la qualité des projets. La Nature fait partie de ces arguments, encore davantage avec la reconnaissance de l’intérêt des « Trames vertes urbaines ». Cette question de la nature en ville et de la végétalisation urbaine est au cœur des problématiques des aménageurs et influence les pratiques professionnelles. A partir de 5 cas (Zones d’Aménagements Concertées) dans le grand ouest français, ce travail vise la compréhension de la place attribuée à la nature dans le processus d’aménagement urbain. Comment la prise en compte des éléments naturels interagit avec le projet par l’intermédiaire des acteurs ? Pour quelle matérialité et quelle spatialisation? Trois angles d’analyse ont été retenus pour y répondre. D’abord la reconstitution historique des projets, ensuite l’analyse du langage employé pour décrire l’ambition et les objets naturels, enfin l’observation de la matérialité obtenue sur le site. Ainsi, la méthodologie croise techniques d’entretiens in situ avec les acteurs des opérations, lexicométrie et traitements géomatiques des données environnementales à l’échelle d’un quartier. De fait, la thèse montre qu’une même ambition environnementale peut mener à une pluralité d’aménagements. Ainsi, la prise en compte de la nature dépend elle de multiples facteurs qui conditionneront la qualités des opérations et donc celle de la trame verte urbaine. / Environnemental awarness brings urban design to become more sustainable. One argument is that nature is a garantee of urban quality, with recognition of the need to préserve a green frame in the city. This issue is crutial to current debates on urban planning and design practices. Five case studies located in western french cities should enable the reader to better understand the place of nature in design process. How do the care of nature interacts with projects trough stakeholders? And which « matériality » and spatialization are we looking for? The question is analysed from three standpoints. First, the historical approach of the projects introduce the method. Then, we examine the language in the project documentation and with stakeholders’ testimonies. Finally, each neighborhoods is whatched ont he ground. Thanks to lexicometry, discourse analysis and geomatics engineering this Phd demonstrate the variety of possible final projects even if stakeholders were sharing similar ambitions at the beginning of the planning process. Taking care of nature depends on many factors wich directly impact the quality of urban design and nature in our cities.

Over the last thirty years the meaning of the word 'wilderness' has changed in Australia, and it has come under sustained attack on philosophical, cultural, political and ‘justice’ grounds. This thesis investigates the 'Wilderness Knot’ – the confusion and tangled meanings around ‘wilderness’. In the literature this ‘knot’ is comprised of at least five strands; philosophical, political, cultural, justice and exploitation. Normally people focus only on the last of these strands, its economic exploitation. The methodology is qualitative, involving participatory action research (PAR) and hermeneutic phenomenology. The PAR was done with the Blue Mountains Wilderness Network near Sydney, which investigated the confusion around ‘wilderness’, and sought to reduce this by entering into dialogue with supporters, critics and community members interested in wilderness issues, notably the local Aboriginal Traditional Owners (TOs). Eleven in-depth interviews with scholars (including critics) of wilderness were carried out to feed into this PAR. The hermeneutic phenomenology made use of the wilderness journals of five of the Network, and sought to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of wilderness itself, and also the lived experience of encountering the wilderness knot. The PAR provided many insights into the knot, especially regarding the need for dialogue to reduce the confusion. It demonstrated the delicacy needed to gain meaningful dialogue over an issue which raises real passions about social and environmental justice. It took three years to develop meaningful dialogue between TOs and conservationists. The spectra of issues entangled in ‘the land’ and ‘wilderness’ are presented textually and diagrammatically, as are the ways forward to untangle meanings and reduce confusion. The political naivety of academia is discussed in regard to ‘wilderness as lanai’ (considering increasing threats). There is a need for greater rigour in identifying which meaning of ‘wilderness’ is actually being referred to. There is also merit in promoting recognition that ‘wilderness’ is in fact a tribute to past indigenous land practices, not a disregard of indigenous history. The idea of shared ‘custodianship’ or stewardship is suggested as a way forward. The wilderness knot can indeed be loosened, as this thesis demonstrates. However, it will be an ongoing project for all those involved. The art to keeping ‘wilderness as lanai’ is not just ‘eternal vigilance’ it is an eternal ongoing dialogue about its meaning and values. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)