The Phenomenal Chinook: Experientially Bridging Architecture and Nature Through Wind Design in Lethbridge, Alberta

Abstract

In the Western world, we continue to perceive nature as separate from ourselves and the built environment, perpetuating the extinction of experience that distances environmental harm from the human domain. This thesis explores how designing sensitively with intense climates in built environments ignorant of these climates can confront this perception. Lethbridge, Alberta, is selected for its ignorance of the intense chinook wind, a climatic phenomenon neglected through a ‘brute force’ mentality towards materials, transportation, and building form, posing challenges to health and pedestrian connectivity. A bioclimatic approach is deployed, augmented by perceptual concepts of weathering, walking, and bracketing, to design a wellness centre and pedestrian walkway through the Lethbridge Viaduct that connects the city, wind, and river valley. Bridging architecture and the chinook technically and perceptively reveals the capability of sensitive climate design to cultivate nature experiences that can develop greater and more meaningful relationships to and care for nature.