Thesis project title: Human / Nature (dis)Connectedness: Beyond Biophilia in the Built Environment
Supervisor: Carmela Cucuzzella
Program: Master of Design (MDES)
Graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Relations at Concordia University in Montréal, an Interior Designer and instructor by profession, Dina Kamal is now pursuing a Masters in Design (MDES. Her master’s research aims to study the correlation of people’s connection and disconnection to nature, while analyzing its impact on sustainability, the environment and how this affects our well-being, our behavior, in turn to help rethink the way we live, design, build and create.
The research explores the relationship between humans and nature in the built environment, where Dina aims to understand why we bring the outside in and in what respect do we do so, questioning the intention vs. the reality of nature in the built environment. This is being achieved through a series of creation projects to better understand the elements involved in the relationship, and through film analysis, mostly of dystopian futuristic worlds in the near and distant future. Connectedness is extremely valuable where one would expect an increase in human/nature connectedness in the future standards and expectations of our built environment. Studies have
shown that Human/Nature connectedness and disconnectedness affects our physical wellbeing and our mental health which poses many questions in regards to our current built environment.
Research questions include: In what ways are we so disconnected from nature, and why is it not standard practice to incorporate nature into the way we build and live?, Why has the value of nature in the built environment been reduced to aesthetic? In interior design and in the built environment in general, is there room for growth, to move towards a more cohesive human/nature connectedness, and a more
holistic approach to design?, How can we rethink the value of our human/nature (dis)connectedness to undesign and restructure the narratives of the built environment?
The work will include storytelling and story boarding, to provoke thought and imagination of a built environment, in a world that goes back to its roots and back to nature.