Contemporary education does not leave students with all of the necessary skills to navigate the increased complexity of the shrinking globe. The loss of practical skills for sensitive engagement with the built and natural environment is a root cause of sustainability issues. Sustainable environmental systems education informed by the principles of forest kindergarten and Katie Davis’ Six Strategies for Environmental Learning are focused on embodied experience, teaching intellectual as well as ethical and emotional lessons leaving learners with the practical skills that they need to engage with holistic environmental systems. Natural systems sustain themselves in the way that designed systems also should. "The natural consumption cycle is a closed loop system where the waste of one is consumable of another." (9 Orr, 2004) Interior space fights the inevitable decay that is part of a natural life cycle, overlooking long-term life cycle implications. The sustainable systems and process of the built environment can be informed by the closed loop system of natural consumption. Design can remind humans of their role in the ecosystem. This closed loop system can also inform the evaluation of materials and furniture and the reuse of materials that might otherwise have been overlooked, resulting in the use, and production, of less new materials. This project explores the typology of Forest Kindergarten within the interior environment using a framework informed by concepts of nature inspired design, systems inspired design and material inspired design in order to challenge expectations of contemporary education and the built environment in order to leave users with new expectations of their role in the natural ecosystem.

The practicum explores 21st century retail design, with a specific focus on the emerging typology of guerilla retail. Through methodologies and performance theory from theatre, guerilla retail design is examined. The project was developed to explore a current disconnect that exists between producer and consumer. This disconnect has arisen out of a number of factors including, the geographical distance between producer and consumer and the lack of information provided to consumers about products. Ideas and theories from various forms of Guerilla theatre are examined to enhance the experience of the retail environment, creating a deeper emotional connection to the product, consumer, producer and act of shopping. A retail model is explored in three different sites to demonstrate the versatility. Through low construction cost, quick assembly and the strong impact of experience, this guerilla retail model aids these producers to survive in the midst of a globalized world.

Due to the increase of global flows, people, products and information are moving faster than ever before. Transit stations in turn have largely lost the ability to connect the traveller with the local environment, evolving into bland and homogeneous spaces. By introducing a means to pause within these flows, it becomes possible to once again engage in and absorb the surroundings that have become ignored and disregarded. This study aims to reconnect user and the local context through an interior design of a multi-modal transit interchange. Dance and human movement are used as a methodology to unite user with place, ultimately informing new programs and spatial arrangements. The resulting interior design is able to foster place identity, allowing the user to slow their movements in order to create meaningful social, cultural and contextual connections within a transit space.

Eco Dwelling: Interior Design as a Medium for a Branded Lifestyle explores how the built environment can be used as a three-dimensional media in the context of branding a lifestyle. In Western society the exchange between consumption of material goods and personal identity is strongly influenced not only by media such as newspaper, radio, and television, but as well as by newer forms of social networking. The Eco Dwelling is a lifestyle complex that uses the environment as a three-dimensional media to promote the ideologies of a sustainable lifestyle. Eco-luxury apartments, eco-conscious retail and a vertical garden act as a narrative for a hybrid eco-luxury lifestyle by providing a mixed use, multi-tenant complex. Employing Holt’s Cultural Branding Strategy for brand development, the intent of the project is to create a new typology that allows consumers and eco-dwellers the opportunity to express their identity of both eco-consciousness and luxury living.

This project is a point of departure for re-thinking one of the major tools of interior design practice - the wall. Ubiquitous in nature, the wall has a seemingly straightforward and simplistic understanding. The focus of this project is to re-examine it’s typical understanding, and re-situate it’s poetic presence within the built environment through a designed intervention. Through investigating theoretical concepts such as boundary, interiority and threshold, along with memory, trace, and void; an evolution of wall into poché begins to ensue. Poché is an alternate term used here to regard the hidden depth and dimensionality of the wall. Through an adaptive reuse methodology, a new use for a derelict industrial building in North St. Boniface has been redesigned into a community center for members of that given neighbourhood. Overall, the study facilitated a fresh understanding of both terms - poché and wall - then subsequently translated those findings into a designed interior.

This project is a point of departure for re-thinking one of the major tools of interior design practice - the wall. Ubiquitous in nature, the wall has a seemingly straightforward and simplistic understanding. The focus of this project is to re-examine it’s typical understanding, and re-situate it’s poetic presence within the built environment through a designed intervention. Through investigating theoretical concepts such as boundary, interiority and threshold, along with memory, trace, and void; an evolution of wall into poché begins to ensue. Poché is an alternate term used here to regard the hidden depth and dimensionality of the wall. Through an adaptive reuse methodology, a new use for a derelict industrial building in North St. Boniface has been redesigned into a community center for members of that given neighbourhood. Overall, the study facilitated a fresh understanding of both terms - poché and wall - then subsequently translated those findings into a designed interior.

Contemporary education does not leave students with all of the necessary skills to navigate the increased complexity of the shrinking globe. The loss of practical skills for sensitive engagement with the built and natural environment is a root cause of sustainability issues. Sustainable environmental systems education informed by the principles of forest kindergarten and Katie Davis’ Six Strategies for Environmental Learning are focused on embodied experience, teaching intellectual as well as ethical and emotional lessons leaving learners with the practical skills that they need to engage with holistic environmental systems. Natural systems sustain themselves in the way that designed systems also should. "The natural consumption cycle is a closed loop system where the waste of one is consumable of another." (9 Orr, 2004) Interior space fights the inevitable decay that is part of a natural life cycle, overlooking long-term life cycle implications. The sustainable systems and process of the built environment can be informed by the closed loop system of natural consumption. Design can remind humans of their role in the ecosystem. This closed loop system can also inform the evaluation of materials and furniture and the reuse of materials that might otherwise have been overlooked, resulting in the use, and production, of less new materials. This project explores the typology of Forest Kindergarten within the interior environment using a framework informed by concepts of nature inspired design, systems inspired design and material inspired design in order to challenge expectations of contemporary education and the built environment in order to leave users with new expectations of their role in the natural ecosystem.

Contemporary outreach services focus on prevention as a means to ending homelessness (Averill, Keys, Mallet, & Rosenthal, 2010; Gaetz, 2010; Higgitt, Ristock & Wingert, 2005). As a result, services are commonly aimed at youth to provide alternatives to street-life before negative patterns are ingrained; the emotional effects of homelessness are also starting to be addressed. Drop-in facilities are proving useful by responding with greater flexibility toward the inconsistent lives of homeless people (Bantchevska, Dashora, Garren, Glassman, Slesnick & Toviessi, 2008). Art programming offers an environment addressing both emotional concerns and technical skill development (Higgitt, Ristock & Wingert, 2005). In Winnipeg, MB, urban, youth street-culture has responded positively to drop-ins embodying Hip-Hop culture as the unifying theme (B. Veruela, personal communication, November 7, 2012). Hip-Hop provides a context for art and learning that incorporates belonging and growth - the identifiers of a playful space. Play spaces offer a positive environment for dealing with emotionally charged topics such as homelessness (Apter, 1991; Kerr, 1991). This project presents the adaptive reuse of one of Winnipeg’s industrial buildings as a modern drop-in centre where emotional care for youth is accommodated through play theory.

The practicum explores 21st century retail design, with a specific focus on the emerging typology of guerilla retail. Through methodologies and performance theory from theatre, guerilla retail design is examined. The project was developed to explore a current disconnect that exists between producer and consumer. This disconnect has arisen out of a number of factors including, the geographical distance between producer and consumer and the lack of information provided to consumers about products. Ideas and theories from various forms of Guerilla theatre are examined to enhance the experience of the retail environment, creating a deeper emotional connection to the product, consumer, producer and act of shopping. A retail model is explored in three different sites to demonstrate the versatility. Through low construction cost, quick assembly and the strong impact of experience, this guerilla retail model aids these producers to survive in the midst of a globalized world.

Due to the increase of global flows, people, products and information are moving faster than ever before. Transit stations in turn have largely lost the ability to connect the traveller with the local environment, evolving into bland and homogeneous spaces. By introducing a means to pause within these flows, it becomes possible to once again engage in and absorb the surroundings that have become ignored and disregarded. This study aims to reconnect user and the local context through an interior design of a multi-modal transit interchange. Dance and human movement are used as a methodology to unite user with place, ultimately informing new programs and spatial arrangements. The resulting interior design is able to foster place identity, allowing the user to slow their movements in order to create meaningful social, cultural and contextual connections within a transit space.