about

CARTOGRAPHIC IMAGINATIONS / studio series                                                                          University of Washington / Department of Landscape Architecture                                    Advanced Graduate Design Studio

Maps have long been critical for visualizing and comprehending the spatial qualities of our lives. Whether developed through intuition and familiarity or conventions of scale and direction, maps enable orientation and understanding of our surroundings. They also reveal a deep engagement with the creator’s imagination, reflecting  interests and priorities to develop an idiosyncratic telling of a spatial narrative. Within the field of landscape architecture, maps are commonly used to delineate, scope, and frame the geographic extents of a given project or territorial exploration.

The Cartographic Imaginations studio series seeks to extend the potential of mapping practices within the allied design and planning disciplines. This extension is a challenge to both map making and map reading – urging the creator and the viewer to read between the lines of what is displayed to more fully understand how maps, like art, are culturally stratified and offer a very particular window through which to view the world.

Such approach breeds fertile ground for those interested in critically engaging and experimenting in the dynamic representation of our complex geographies: for revealing the invisible and intangible relations that serve to comprise and support our understanding of place. This series uses the act of mapping to generate spatially-bound, diagrammatic explorations of the built environment that explore the complexities, boundaries and perception of place and community in contemporary terms and through time. Engaging with emerging theory in landscape architecture and critical cartography the series seeks to develop representational processes that move beyond static views and perceptions of landscape.

questions? Ken Yocom – kyocom@uw.edu