Representing Heritage Cultural Mapping as a Research Methodology

Abstract

The globalization of information and the growing use of artificial intelligence pose significant challenges to the preservation of cultural roots and the maintenance of ties with places of belonging. This study focuses on the vernacular knowledge system, understood as a set of cultural manifestations originating from the empirical knowledge of the community. Cultural mapping is approached as a research methodology, privileging walking, proximity to the site, and active community participation as tools for observation, analysis, interpretation, and representation. This work is part of artistic and design-oriented research through mapping, in which the act of mapping—through walking, sensory observation, and graphic recording—constitutes the very process of knowledge production. The aesthetic and graphic dimension of the maps goes beyond the artifact and materializes in the design of architectural objects that punctuate the landscape in an invitation to observation and contemplation.

Keywords: mapping, arts and crafts, design, vernacular architecture