This grass-lined wheel, built in 2006 by David Gallaugher, Kevin James, Asher deGroot and Jacob Jebailey at the Dalhousie School of Architecture, is exactly what it sounds like — a large circular frame filled with living turf, sized for a single person to walk inside. Step in, and the wheel turns beneath your feet, an endless strip of lawn rotating in place, like a hamster wheel for those of us who need to touch grass.

The Grass Wheel is easy to dismiss as a gag — an overcomplicated solution to a problem that parks already solve. But four architecture students looked at the built environment and decided the most radical intervention they could make was giving someone the feeling of bare ground underfoot. Soil and sod circling slowly under your feet, nothing to tap or swipe, immerse yourself in the grass in motion.