Cultivating Urban Nature: Recontextualizing Perceptions of Nature in the Everyday Urban Experience

Abstract

This thesis explores how perceptions of nature can be cultivated in everyday urban experiences through design. By developing and utilizing the Nature Perception Design Framework based on Rachel and Stephen Kaplan’s Reasonable Person Model (RPM) and Nature Perception Categories, I develop a diagrammatic master plan and more detailed site plan for an electrical utility right-of-way transecting nine blocks in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The proposal highlights the different forms that urban nature can take in people’s perceptions. The designs developed for this site explore the design process through multiple scales and functions. They model how the framework is utilized and could be implemented beyond the confines of this case study.