Files
Abstract
While sustainable landscape designs help preserve and restore important ecological processes, this thesis proposes that designing a sustainable future is much larger than what can be accomplished with any site-level design. The key to environmentalism lies in the social realm and landscape designers have the opportunity to use the formal aspects of design to help the public connect the actions of humans to the less obvious patterns of the natural world. This thesis explores the idea that designed landscapes can potentially transform the way that humans relate to nature, and proposes a framework to guide the design of this type of transformative experience of nature. The framework, based on analysis of existing research then refined through case study analysis, is finally evaluated as a design tool through a projective design for a public greenway in Birmingham, Alabama.