Mainstream approaches to nature, such as tourism, are based on freedom of movement and choices. Freedom is driven by the consumption of experiences: 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 temporary condition of confinement. What does it happen when one has to stay in a place after doing everything which was pre-scripted? What does it happen when one has to stare at a landscape longer than the necessary time to capture 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 trivialisation of it, architecture can mediate to change this condition, by imposing rules.