Hi! My name is Claire and I am a designer currently based in Toronto. My interests in the design world extend across many different areas. I love the personal nature of furniture design, where you are often only curating an experience for at the most a few people. However I'm also interested in the larger impact that urban and landscape design has on our experience of the built environment. Throughout this past year I have spent plenty of time exploring both these avenues and developed my design skills as a result. Through my work in furniture design I have been able to explore different materials and forge new skills in craftmanship. It has also been a great opportunity to work more hands on with a project, in an age where a lot of worktime is spent on the computer. In my thesis project my main focus has been on the integration of authentic natural spaces with the city. Where I've looked at how we can utilize the revival of natural features in order to create both functional and experiential systems of nature for our cities. For too long there has been the assumption that cities and nature cannot meld together and that this experience of the natural world must be given up for the convenience of living in a city. Now more than ever we need to be looking at how we can utilize the inherent systems of nature to combat the effects of climate change and restore the connection between citizens and the environment.