Just the other day I tweeted a link to a box. This was not an ordinary box, it was a ‘magical’ box made out of mirrors. And what does it do? It fooled you into thinking you were some place else!

Jokes and smoke aside, along the streets of Amsterdam stands a box called the ‘Unlimited Urban Woods’ enclosing a ‘forest’ as far as the eye can see. It is not the architectural feat that sparks my interest, but the social comment I draw out of such a land mark. How detached from reality are we exactly?

As my colleague Bradley recently pointed out, nature has a therapeutic element that can cater for city life escapism. Agreed, but in our busy lives we are continuously substituting the ‘real’ nature for a ‘synthetic’ and easily accessible version, like the box.

But it doesn’t stop there: Blackberry is now a phone, Apple is ‘everything tech’, and the last time I saw rolling hills, miles of grass and amazing clouds was on my Windows XP. How much longer will it be until our senses are fooled so much that we don’t visit nature to get away from the noise of everyday life, but just flick on a 4D TV and a Wildlife documentary?

So after the ‘box’ experience I think I definitely need to head for the hills this weekend, and get some dirt on my shoes. And you?