Mainstream approaches to nature, such as tourism, are based on freedom of movement and choices. Freedom is driven by the consumption of experiences and as soon as the meaning we sought is exhausted, we move towards a new one. Constraint can force a different understanding of the things we look at and can trigger imagination, as a way to break the limits of the imprisonment condition. What does it happen when you have to stay in a place after you have seen everything and done all the things you could do? What does it happen if you have to stare at a landscape after you think you captured all of its beauty?

A transition occurs: the passive observer becomes an active performer. Even if only mentally our imagination can re-shape the reality that surrounds us. In this process our emotions play a role, as we project our mood onto the things we look at. In this transition architecture becomes a tool to help the user to frame and re-shape the landscape. In this way the landscape can become something more than the bi-dimensional postcard it is often reduced to. If the freedom with which we normally approach nature has led to a trivialization of it, architecture can mediate to change this condition, by imposing rules.