Topophilia: A Tidal Retreat

"My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call." -Pat Conroy

"Existential contents have their source in the landscape." -Willy Hellpach

The preceding statements each reflect the significance of the landscape to one's existential being. The first embodies the veracity of the latter in its specificity of place, the tidal marshes and sea islands of the Carolinas.

How do we come to know a place? What is the significance of one's participatory perception of the qualitative experience of the natural world? How can that awareness of the specificity of the surrounding physical environment be imparted through architecture?