Mapear o Verde reinterpretando o plano diretor Municipal de Braga

Abstract

In architecture, drawing, more than a means of expression, is mainly a tool for thinking and documenting space – an excuse to stop, observe and slowly take in the characteristics of the places we inhabit. In textiles, Botanical Printing1 is a natural dyeing technique in which plants are used to create permanent prints on fabric and can, therefore, be interpreted as a way of drawing with plants. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari distinguish the act of mapping from that of tracing, arguing that the first “is entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2005, p. 12). In Braga’s Municipal Master Plan (a tracing, not a map), the city’s green spaces are represented by the use of different hatches. In Mapping the Green [Figure 1, 2], I reinterpret these spaces, mapping them in a way that represents my experience and interpretation of them. To do so, I conducted visits to each one of the selected spaces2, where I gathered samples of the plants that I considered most characteristic of them. Once the samples had been collected, I dyed fabric for each of the green spaces using the plants found in that same location [Figure 3, 4]. In order to distinguish between the three different categories of green spaces [Figure 5], three different techniques were used to mordant the fabric: for the “Forest Spaces” category, the fabric was mordanted with Concentrated Aluminum Acetate and Iron Sulfate, for the “Main Green Structure”, a blanket of Iron Sulfate was used over fabric mordanted with Tannin and Aluminum Acetate, and for the “Urban Parks”, the fabric was mordanted with Iron Sulfate. These dyed fabrics were then reworked and reinterpreted through sewing and an appliqué technique, in order to map out Braga’s green spaces on a textile panel. To complement the map, an Herbarium was also created for each of the green categories analyzed [Figure 6, 7, 8]. In each Herbarium, the plants were organized according to the site where they were found, allowing for a more objective analysis of the variety and predominance of each plant in each green space [Figure 9]. These visits were carried out in the fall of 2024. Repeating this project in another time frame would inevitably wield different results and, as such, the project could be repeated time and time again, revealing the changes that the seasons and the passing of time can cause in the urban green landscape. Because it was made with fabric, successive and potentially infinite new layers of information (beyond just the green spaces) can be added to this map and, therefore, it will never truly be completed. According to Flores y Prats, drawing is a vital tool in the observation and recognition phase of the project (Flores et al., 2024, p. 14). Since Botanical Printmaking requires plants, this technique (similarly to drawing) requires its practitioner to wander, observe and analyze their surroundings, in a type of foraging. In Mapping the Green, Botanical Printing is shown to be an inherently site-specific practice that can, similarly to (and alongside) drawing, be a tool for responding to the observation and recognition phase of green spaces.