The ecologist E. P. Odum argued that it was not grassland or forest that provided the ideal early habitat for humans, but rather the boundary between the two, the “forest edge,” where both distant views and physical enclosure were present. Thomas Campanella of the University of North Carolina notes that the “recollection of the forest edge may explain why architectural and urbanistic elements evocative of this space—colonnades, loggias, arcades, verandas, even porches—are so appealing and comfortable.”
