Maps do not represent reality, they create it. As a fundamental part of the design process, the act of mapping results in highly authored views of a site. By choosing what features, forces, and flows to highlight?and implicitly, which to exclude?the designer first creates the reality into which their intervention will be situated and discussed. Furthermore, the usage and materiality of space is increasingly measured, categorized, and circulated by all manners of institutions; these competing data representations often become the primary way of understanding and responding to a site. Designers are in the difficult position of approaching these geographic datasets critically while simultaneously employing them in their work. It is not enough to represent complicated networks of site forces and interactions as a neutral backdrop to one’s design; we are tasked with actively shaping them.
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