Nature's Course: Unearthing the Kingdom of the Grey

This thesis examines historical concepts of nature in the context of Windmill Point, a wharf at the entrance of the Lachine Canal in Montreal's Old Port. It does so to understand how the conceptualization of nature has formed the way humans have mapped, shaped, and exploited it as a resource. Humans' self-ascribed dominion has shaped and reshaped the environment to fit economic aspirations, aesthetic desires, and cartographic reiterations which speak to a faith in measurability, order, and linear progression. By studying a series of archival maps, images, and documents in conjunction with regular site immersion, materials explorations, and design propositions this thesis investigates fungi as a design tool which can begin to challenge assumptions held on the production and commodification of space. It proposes a series of interventions which invite fungal possibilities while accepting and celebrating the non-linear and often erratic agency of fungi in "stories of making and unmaking".