In a world of constant influx and endless supply of information and technology, the Great Lakes have managed to become lost in our collective subconscious. We no longer ‘need’ to understand the massive impact the Great Lakes have on our lives. We can order bottled water online, drive to the Home Depot to get some pine, and send our trash off to the landfill without thinking twice about the implications. This proposal is centered around the idea of fostering conversation about the lakes and why they should matter to us. It serves as a catalyst for re-instating the lakes into the everyday lives of people in the region. These ideas are manifested in a proposal of an artificial landscape and pavilion. The landscape is constructed of typical boardwalk planks as well as a concrete pad for the base of the pavilion. Composed of cuts, ridges, and lips, the landscape is loosely formalized with an underlying geological metaphor providing a sense of the timelessness of the lakes and their geological history. Ascending and descending the landscape, one is aware of the shifting horizon, emphasizing the immensity of the lakes. The limits of the boardwalk would eventually be blurred by drifting sand, allowing the dynamism of the existing dunescape to create its own relationship with the artificial surfaces; to make the landscape its own.Inside the pavilion, an responsive floor reacts to visitor location, informing projections on the floor to change size, location and/or density of information based on where people are, in an effort to encourage group examination and discussion. Throughout the continuous landscape, visitors would be engaging the abstract information in the presence of the phenomenal horizon.

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