Mapping a city within your memory based only on visual observations

Hidden Urban Communication

Images created from: Boston MA, Rotterdam The Netherlands, Seville Spain, London UK

Without even realizing it, people use visual pieces of their environment for
navigating around the city. After a certain point, people stop using maps and asking people for directions. Because when moving around a city you move base on what you see. You set certain expectations of an area base on how it
communicates to you with how the people and buildings look. What kind of buisness are around. How much space and nature there is, and just about anything else to build assumptions about that place.

When coming to Rotterdam I didn’t use tourist maps because I was planning on being here longer. I didn’t know the language, and I had no guide. So in order to understand my new environment I walked and observed the city as much as possible so I could build in a way a map of Rotterdam in my head.

This project isn’t focusing on one city, but what makes city and how completly different neighborhoods and areas create one place and their connections and flow from one to the other.