Cultural mapping is an emerging field of interdisciplinary research, as a mode of inquiry and a methodological tool in urban planning, cultural sustainability, and community development. It is strategically used by administrations of municipalities, community/civic organizations, and informal initiatives to bring a diverse range of stakeholders into conversation about the cultural dimensions and potentials of a place.
Cultural mapping is allied with other mapping fields (i.e., deep mapping, community mapping, participatory asset mapping, counter-mapping, qualitative GIS, and emotional mapping), with which it shares a focus on bottom-up processes for making visible the knowledge of citizens/residents as well as the narratives, identities, histories, and local practices that bring meanings to places.
It has proven very good at detailing tangible assets that can be counted, such as physical spaces, cultural organizations, public art, and other material resources, with a growing interest in mapping intangible dimensions of culture. These intangible dimensions are of particular relevance in contemporary research, in artistic and architectural works, and in urban and community engagement and planning practices.
This session is dedicated to debating the potential for culturally informed change through cultural mapping in relation to urban regeneration processes with nature-based solutions, as well as the challenges and opportunities of this interdisciplinary research and methodological tool in terms of collaborations across research disciplines and transdisciplinary practices.
Selected presentations identify case studies, experiences and guiding principles that contribute to our knowledge about how cultural mapping can be interrelated with activities and thinking about sustainability in theory as well as through a diversity of practices. For example, the original call indicated that topics may address, but are not limited to: how understanding the local cultural ecosystem informs and influences the community’s cohesion, vitality and well-being; how cultural components are produced and reproduced in the context of the territory’s urban regeneration; and how cultural mapping functions as a communication, conversational and knowledge production platform.
Target audiences: Researchers, civic actors/NGOs, urban planners/practitioners, municipal officers/staff, and representatives of other local/regional authorities.
Community participation and transdisciplinary co-creation strategies are among the best practices for contemporary integrated and inclusive urban management. This paper intends to focus on cultural heritage mapping through community participation, namely by providing i) methodology background on selected participation techniques; ii) critical analysis of two reference case-studies in Ballarat (Australia) and Cuenca (Ecuador); iii) cultural heritage mapping in a pilot urban area in the city of Porto (Portugal) – Vale de Massarelos, supported on participation experiences with communities.
International reference case-studies are selected because of its innovative and integrated approach on assessing cultural significance of urban areas, both consisting in pilot cities for the implementation of the Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation (UNESCO, 2011). Hence, the “Imagine Project” in Ballarat focused on conserving local heritage through proactive community-based approaches with a focus on the active involvement of different stakeholder groups. As regards to the project “Reassessment of the Cultural and Natural Heritage of the city of Cuenca from the strategies of sustainable development supported in the Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (PUH_C)”, the key focus was citizen participation sustained on a broad concept of heritage and interdisciplinary research.
Moreover, learning from reference cases, this study will provide deeper insight on the implementation of different participation strategies for the urban management of Massarelos Valley, directed to assess the communities’ perception on the site’s cultural significance. Cultural heritage mapping will be spatialized through a georeferenced GIS software, for the different planning stages of implementation i) characterization (attributes and values), ii) diagnosis (risks and problems) and iii) proposal (tangible and intangible actions).
The study is sustained on different participation techniques for the involvement of stakeholders in a co-creation regime for the identification of values and attributes, vulnerabilities and proposals for sustainable urban management.
Observation (accompanied by the recording of notes in the field diary, photos and videos), aimed at a first contact for the understanding of the territory. Concomitant to the field observation, analytic studies were carried out on the official websites to identify establishments, possible places and interested parties as having a relationship with the Massarelos Valley. Thus, the interested parties were identified and mapped.
In a second and analytical phase, the following techniques were applied: 1) observation, an analysis grid was developed for the field diary with macro themes (Physical Space, Natural Space, Built, Immaterial, People, Signage, Visual relationships, Access, Transport) based on the dimensions addressed in the definition of Historic Urban Landscape - articles 8 and 9 (UNESCO, 2011); 2) semi-structured individual interviews with key people; 3) paper surveys (field visits) and online (sent by e-mail); 4) Lousa Project, with the elderly; 5) Drawing the place where they live and what they like most, with the children; 6) Exhibition of children's drawings and old photos of Massarelos at the Massarelos Residents' Association; 7) Sharing of memories by the elderly; 8) Perception Map creation workshop.
Finally, comparative discussion will allow us to point out strengths and vulnerabilities in the development stages, as well as pointing out guidelines for improving cultural heritage mapping for urban management through community participation.
We are living under a critical and symbolical moment, stressed by the COVID19 pandemic and the increasingly evident climatic changes. On architectural and urban planning research, this scenario seems to be creating a productive generation of thoughts, theories and practices on how we can contribute as a discipline and how we should act as professionals. The concept of participation on urban design processes with an emphasis on more precise, evolutive and adequate design mechanisms are at the core of this phenomenon as a transformative process and practice (Blundell Jones, Petrescu and Till, 2013, p.xvi)
This paper aims to frame and analyse the importance of several design tools to integrate the collective projections of the community and enhance their appropriation of a specific place of the healthy corridor that URBiNAT H2020 project is developing in the city of Porto (Portugal): a vacant ruin of an old farm located on the parish of Campanhã - Logar do Falcão.
The urban project that will change this place is still in progress, but it is already possible to identify its importance to the physical and social transformation on the intervention area. This research will analyse several moments of interaction with citizens that took place in the last three years in three stages of the co-creation process: co-diagnostic with a walkthrough with citizens (children and adults) and individual interviews with adults; co-design with children through a physical model of the study area and a webinar with adults to draw solutions on Miro software; co-implementation with a physical model, which represents a preview of the transformation, allowing citizens of all ages to think and prepare its future use as a public and community space, within an experiment of a solidarity market that was proposed in a previous stage.
During these moments of field (and digital) work URBiNAT’s cultural mapping NBS was used as a methodology to plan the described techniques to collect, record, analyse synthetise and test all the information that was gathered or created. This methodology allowed the urban plan team to map facilities, organizations, stories, heritage values and aspirations, which helped to understand the cultural resources, networks, links and patterns of usage that were then integrated as reasons and inspirations for the plan. (Duxbury & Nunes, 2021). Many of the approaches and tools used are, after all, existing ‘regular’ architecture co-working means. For each case, they are, however, rethought to become more expressive and clearer, flexible, and dynamic, to ease the flow of discussion. Depending on the circumstance in which they’re applied, different outcomes and (counter)reactions by the participants arise. Most of the activities include pre-sessions with citizens for their reassessment. Through an active participation, this process puts to test innovative methodologies, by getting constant and direct feedback from their users.
The participatory design process was based on this cultural mapping framework, where citizens identified the needs and proposed ideas to address cultural and social gaps. Then, step by step, the proposal was tested by the planners to transform the physical space, as well as the implementation of a solidarity market with local producers. In permanent dialogue, the participatory activities transform the cultural values and perspectives of both citizens and place.
This way, the architectural design process through a cultural mapping approach is relevant for the intergenerational verification and appropriation of the new Logar do Falcão and the solidarity market initiative.
References:
Duxbury, N. & Nunes, N. (2021) Cultural Mapping in Farinea, C; Conserva, A. & Villodres, R. (eds.) URBiNAT D4.1: New NBS Co-Creation of URBiNAT NBS (live) Catalogue and Toolkit for Healthy Corridor. Barcelona: IAAC, p.66
Jones, P. B., Petrescu, D. and Till, J. (2013), Architecture and Participation, Routledge.
Cultural mapping protocol and general guidelines for implementing participatory activities: annex 1 of URBiNAT’s deliverable D3.1
Community-driven tools to communicate NBS and promote youth engagement: the case of the Campanh’UP Platform in Porto
What are the opportunities that emerge through the use of community-driven communication tools for the implementation of NBS? With the aim of activating communication ecosystems in communitarian spaces, educommunication (Soares, 2000) combines creative space and civic participation with learning by doing. Its unlikely association with Nature-based Solutions (NBS) has led to several opportunities in the case of Porto. NBS are defined by the European Commission (2019) as solutions inspired by nature with which to face social, economic and ecological challenges. One of the main functional categories of Ecosystem Services is in fact culture, with nature providing opportunities for reflection, cognitive development and aesthetic experience (Croci and Lucchitta, 2022). The IUCN refers to the inclusion of traditional knowledge as part of the NBS implementation process. In turn, educommunication includes in its attributes the mapping, integration and recognition of diverse knowledge. In this communication it is therefore argued that the implementation of NBS associated with educational processes based on community-driven communication increases the impacts of the solutions and diversifies their benefits.
On one hand, educommunication contributes to local development of a parish by strengthening the active engagement of residents. On the other hand, the values attached to the territory are amplified by changing the criteria by which the community is recognized - more by their potentialities than by the problems that affect them. The co-design process involved in the Campanh’UP Platform in the city of Porto has been underway since 2021, combined with practical activities of educommunication. The proposal for this project emerged within the co-creation process of the Healthy Corridor as part of URBiNAT H2020. It was then appropriated by a set of local associations and residents interested in strengthening the project, who organized an Executive Committee to be responsible for its management. Co-creation of the project came about by means of a bottom up mechanism and seeks to respond to a community need to create new narratives about the parish of Campanhã. From an educommunicative perspective, other indicators also help to define the community, enabling their transformative potential and mutual solidarity to become visible.
The aim of this communication is to present progress, from the ideation of the platform to the co-implementation stage. This pathway demonstrates that there have been numerous advances, but also indirect setbacks that influence the actual level of maturity of this solution. These include the challenges of co-governance and co-creation that produced effects on several local solutions, including the Platform. An additional main topic of this communication is the opportunity for adolescent and youth empowerment, enabling debate and promotion of NBS in public forums. The socio-pedagogical outlines of Campanh’UP contribute to citizen engagement, to sustainable alternatives for the implementation of the Healthy Corridor, and to the intergenerational and intercultural dimensions that enable the stimulation of co-production between different social groups.
References:
Croci, E. and Lucchitta, B. (2022). Nature-Based Solutions for More Sustainable Cities – A Framework Approach for Planning and Evaluation, Emerald Publishing Limited: Bingley. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-636-720211018
European Commission (2019) Social enterprises and their ecosystems in Europe. Updated country report: Bulgaria. Author: Maria Jeliazkova. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Available at https://europa.eu/!Qq64ny
Soares, I. de O. (2000). “Educomunicação: um campo de mediações”, Comunicação & Educação, 0(19), p. 12-24. doi: 10.11606/issn.2316-9125.v0i19p12-24
Urban landscapes increasingly enter the sensory domain. In addition to the visual, the olfactory and the sound constitute relevant dimensions of the appropriation of the city and the dynamics of participation related to the design and use of public space. The text involves the apprehension of the urban environment as a collective process in which identities are constructed and the anthropocentric nature of the soundscape presents itself as the sonorous biography of the place and the listener/subject. Added to this framework is the perception of the presence of noise in urban environments, to attest that the growing noise of the urban community, since the industrial revolution, has stimulated the accomplishment of several studies on its negative effects. From the point of view of public policies regarding the fight against unwanted sound, the high level of noise is considered harmful to social well-being (Fortuna, 2020). However, the sound dimensions of the urban environment are rarely considered planning tools. When they are, the rules of environmental acoustics and architecture often collide with the sounds that make up the city's landscape. To problematize the relevance of sound in the processes of production and social appropriation of space, we ask: how to promote acoustic planning articulated with an aesthetically relevant urban design, capable of involving citizens and stimulating the active use of spaces and your soundscapes? We approach this problem from the theoretical hypothesis that the concept of soundscape is unavoidable in the realization of the phonic identity of a city, being a priority dimension of urban planning instruments. In this sense, we understand that the spaces of metropolises require environments of acoustic congruence, implying respect, pleasure, coexistence and a public life rich in environments, possibilities and sound opportunities (Manzo, 2017). This condition can be mitigated in co-participation with governmental institutional provisions, based on public policies directly correlated with development plans and urban planning. However, is necessary to consider the apprehension of the acoustic environment by those (listeners/subjects) who live in the space, for a correct evaluation of the acoustic space and, consequently, for the understanding and co-creation of the desired usability design of public spaces (Luzzi et al., 2019). In that direction this text refers to cartography processes as an essential tool for the mapping of sound drifts, combined with the analysis of the daily sound events of local listeners, constituting a timely and current method of investigation of urban space. As an illustration, the “Urban Cartographies” project reveals essential tools for constructing the urban sound cartography, as it clarifies moments of field trips, called drift mapping and recordings of a stipulated route. Finally, the text refers, in general, to the use of a model of perception of the city as an alert to the value that hearing has, in which it is possible to perceive that the local listener is a guarantee of the urban sound identity, in collaboration with governmental institutions, combining material and immaterial elements for the co-creation of the urban soundscape.