Exploring how people connect to nature through meaningful places.
As part of her Brown | RISD Master’s thesis in Design Engineering, team member Francesca Holland created an interactive research project to test and refine our Story of Place method. Story of Place, inspired by the Leading Change Network, is designed to help activists and organizers craft narratives about ecosystem restoration by drawing on people’s shared connections to meaningful places.
For her thesis project, Francesca built coral-inspired wooden structures—“community coral reefs”—where visitors could respond to three prompts:
Participants wrote their answers on colorful cards and hung them on the reefs, creating a growing, visible collection of stories that others could read and reflect on. The exhibits were shown first at Brown University’s Engineering building and later throughout the RISD Graduate Show, engaging students, faculty, families, and community members.
Over the course of the exhibit, participants identified 96 meaningful places across 12 countries and four continents, revealing universal patterns in how people connect with nature. These connections often came from personal history, family or community experiences, emotional resonance, or daily encounters with familiar places. Many described these sites as sources of peace, memory, healing, and belonging.
The emotions were strikingly consistent: feelings of perspective, authenticity, connection, and often a sense of being “small but blessed.” Natural places emerged as sanctuaries where people could reflect and feel grounded.
The project confirmed the core premise of Story of Place: that shared human connections to meaningful places can be a powerful foundation for environmental storytelling and advocacy. By grounding narratives in lived experience, the method makes ecosystem restoration more relatable and resonant across diverse audiences.
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