Models of learning and knowledge of territory through walking and expedition: design tools and approaches in dialogue with other sciences

Walking is a cognitive, learning experience that amplifies all the senses, and acts on selective and interpretive skills. Choosing to cross the territory on foot means to have a physical, emotional, and aesthetic experience, which allows us to reach a new consciousness of the daily landscapes, and to overcome the prejudice towards spaces that are taken for granted, and which can then be narrated, translated, and experienced in various forms and at different times. This necessarily starts from the assumption that “every map is a project”, and the mapping operations are firmly rooted in a design process. This article focuses on the methodological research work conducted by the authors in peripheral, rural, and urban contexts of Madeira Island. Approaches, tools, and languages from adjacent disciplinary fields converge to define a research framework of methods. The starting point is therefore the description of field work in the form of various walking workshops, which focused on actively involving learning communities in processes of awareness and transformation.