One day walk

One day walk

Within my research I’m trying to find methods and tools to trace, unveil and map social & ecological values of built heritage in rural areas.
In this contribution I’d like to discuss one of the methods I developed namely ‘A protocol for walking.’ The approach focuses on thinking through walking and drawing rather than an attempt to directly resolve or structure a problem. It aims at triggering curiosity not necessarily resulting in a solution or a conclusion while following a non-linear path.
Walking acts like a starting trigger to investigate the cultural landscape and aims at generating and facilitating a thought process. It is therefore a way of reflecting.
While walking, the act of watching closely can lead to real closeness and might help to gain insight into people’s and other living creatures attitudes, value system, concerns, motivations, aspirations, culture and behaviours and their interaction with space.
As one needs the sharp eye to discover even the most trusted things, the act of drawing while walking becomes a way of observing. The drawing turns into a tool for the eye and makes one seeing things differently.

The essential concept in this methodology is to approach the problem in an indirect way by postponing the problem. This is a way of tackling the uncertainty of the ‘ill-defined’ nature of the problem statement as values and significances cannot easily or clearly be defined.