INTRODUCTION
__9
The purpose of this book is to explore the critical uses of maps in design, and it introduces the concept of operative mapping as its cornerstone. This concept is rooted in an understanding of mapping as a design tool. Maps don’t merely inform; they propose. They don’t offer a neutral representation of reality; they construct reality in a particular way. In that sense, cartography is a propositive discipline, and not simply a descriptive one. The potentially operative nature of maps in design is clear. The particular constructions of reality inherent in maps not only offer new understandings of the reality being mapped; they also set in motion new possibilities for an actual transformation of the milieu. It is in that sense that we talk about mapping operativity: maps and mapping are posited as tools with an enormous power to affect the design processes we use to transform our environment. This book studies the different kinds of operative relationships between maps and design practices, and it outlines pathways for an in-depth exploration of this relationship. Despite an evident interest in maps in art and spatial design practices beginning in the 1950s, critical and deliberate uses of maps as design tools are surprisingly sparse. Based on this observation, our initial working hypothesis is that there is a lot of room for exploring the potential operative relationships between maps and design. A second hypothesis is that mapping logics and practices can lead to a reevaluation and even an expansion of design logics and practices, gradually giving way to a reconsideration of the aims, processes and formats of design. Beyond the instrumental possibilities of mapping in design – in the sense of framing the physical setting for a project, or in the sense of informing specific design decisions – we find that the critical use of maps is an indicator of design approaches that are, in our view, especially interesting and relevant. These approaches are characterized, among other things, by engaging in a projective survey of the conditions of the milieu. By projective survey we are referring to a design attitude, rooted in both pragmatism and critical thinking, that posits any transformation of the milieu as drawing on an understanding of what already exists, without bowing to the tyranny of what already is. Through the concept and the practices of operative mapping, as they are presented in this book, we can establish a dialogue between what exists and what is yet to come, thus promoting engaged and innovative design focused on the substantive and symbolic expansion of the milieu.
Previous page: Four Robot Maps. Lluc Paez-Bunning (six years old), 2011.