Faculty of Design
Environmental Design
LinJuan Dai
Thesis Photo Essay
Environmental Design
2021
growing a forgotten space to a regional place
“The goal of this thesis is to highlight South Central Ontario’s natural creek system. The human-made highway system has cut through the natural creek system insensitively. As a result, such brutal actions have made the natural creek system unrecognizable to local communities and visitors.This thesis suggests highway exits as an invaluable topology to our natural creek system, both literal and metaphorical. By literally exiting the highway, we might be able to connect to our mud, trees, plants, and water, especially during the hard times when we cannot connect to each other. By exiting an unnatural speed of 100 km/hr, and stand on the ground with our two feet, we might be able to smell the roses.How do we convince travelers to exit, stop, and smell the roses? We seduce them by placing designed landscapes in forgotten spaces till they become places.This thesis suggests various designed landscape strategies on the site of highway exit 111, hope to convince enough travelers to exit the highway, park their cars, and oh, suddenly found themselves in a provincial park trail. ”