A sensory mapping of a strolling on foot

#sensorial_cartography #sensory_cartography #emotional_cartography

27 August 2025

In May 2025, the doctoral school (SHPT) at Grenoble Alpes University organised a workshop during which we explored various approaches to sensitive and experimental mapping that can be used for social sciences research.

One of the experiments proposed consisted in a two-hour walk in an area approximately 500m in diameter around the Cité des territoires, the site of the Institut d’urbanisme et de géographie alpine (IUGA, Alpine Urbanism and Geography Institute). Participants were invited to observe and experience the space in all its possible dimensions: atmospheres, fractures, remarkable features, vegetation... and also sounds, noises, colours, fragrances, movements, emotions... They were then asked to record the data collected on a field map, and the spatial experience in the form of one or more maps.

In this exercise, all our senses are on alert to capture everything we do not usually see or feel when we walk. With complete freedom and sensitivity, we try to understand what the sites are telling us... Very often, they plunge us into poetic imagination.

Text and illustrations: Philippe Paumelle

PhD student in architecture

Introduction and workshop coordination: Philippe Rekacewicz and Cristina Del Biaggio

I seek to transcribe my stroll on foot, guided by birdsong and children’s calls.

I walked until I was captivated by groups of birds, lingering especially where several species coexisted.

JPEG - 410.8 KiB — Illustration of the *Blue routes*, the name given to the access roads to the city that opened up periodically, like breaches in the siege.

Sketch by Philippe Paumelle.

I deliberately lost myself in the city tangled streets, curious to see if I could concentrate amid the hustle and bustle.

In short, I walk, stopping only when something disturbs me, a song, a cry, a sound that attracts me.

My way of representing this wandering takes the form of a map: a linear route the intensity of which varies according to the events marking my passage.

***

Birds, like children, have that knowing chuckle that cuts through the air, without caring whom it might disturb. They are free to fill the void between buildings with their recognisable calls. How can such a small body make so much noise? A sparrow smaller than the palm of our hand chirps like the loudest of whistles.

JPEG - 220.4 KiB — The song of birds and children

Sketch by Philippe Paumelle.

They shout like children yelling in a playground.

Remember why you used to shout at the top of your lungs: to enforce the rules of a game, to laugh nervously while being chased, caught between the excitement of running away and the fear of being caught.

JPEG - 355.2 KiB — Sketch by Philippe Paumelle

. We shouted with joy, simply because we were outside. We lived intensely then, to the point of breathlessness.

And while we may stop doing so as adults, birds live their entire lives this way.

I tell myself that children are birds, or perhaps birds are children who remained free.

Why am I searching for this laughter in the city?

Certainly because these are the last sounds of freedom that make me happy, in the midst of modern turmoil the noises of which upset me. Because I will never be a bird, and never again a child.

In searching for the bird, I found the sky.

In searching for the child, I remembered why I laughed.

JPEG - 226.8 KiB — The song of birds and children in the city.

Sketch by Philippe Paumelle.