Biomapping in Delft

smell, sound, sight, sense; exploring the environment like a baby.Even more like a blind man or deaf-mute, since some senses are disabled. How would they experience streets, parks, highways, sites etc ? Christian Nold showed maps of certain urban areas made by human senses, in wich the conventional understanding of mapping an area is turned upside down.They show a humane approach and understanding towards what is mapping actually about, and what should be their goal.The method is called bio mapping, refering to our human senses as a powerfull tool for mapping. After some inspiration and contemplation we headed to the Papsouwselaan, where we asked several people to participate in a little investigation about smell. The aim was to derive places of interest along a 300 meter strip with only the aid of smell. Participants had to wear sound- blocking headphones and a blindfold in order to be completely focused on smell alone. The smell had to be judged by intensity and type; a good and pleasant or bad and horrible. Some people were looking strange at us, as if we wanted to rob them with an original but easy way, and refused to cooperate. Others were very curious, and discovered not only that they had a different idea about the environment before participating in the experiment, but also the power of their smell sense when all other senses are blocked. We placed the results in seperate schemes, showing the intensity and type of smell along the strip. We also brought all the results of the different participants in one map, that shows the strip and it's experience in general. The day of our experiment was very windy and cold; what would be the result when it would be a warm and windfree one ? Some smells were very volatile; are they always there, or was it just temporarily? These and other questions become important if one has the intention to make a trustfull map about a certain area using bio mapping.