Nature Jar: Design for Facilitating Nature Connectedness and Restoration in Home Scenario

Abstract

Over recent decades, rapid urbanization has made people further detached from nature. Researchers from a wide range of disciplines have demonstrated that the growing separateness from nature has adverse impacts on public health and environmental sustainability. Therefore, promoting nature connectedness has been viewed as a prominent and necessary aspiration. Since more and more people live in cities and spend most of their time indoors, urban landscapes and citizens' living environments play an increasingly important role in reconnecting to nature. Under these circumstances, the project aims to use design and technology to gently intervene in people's perceptive and behavioral transformations by encouraging them to notice, value, and have more contact with the nearby nature, as well as deliver nature's restorative effects. A prototype was developed after a cultural probes study, connecting the natural environment with the home space, the digital device with the tangible interaction, the real-life behaviors with the virtual effects.