// PHASE II: ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
The analytical phase was thought for researching and mapping the urban environment, bringing together historical, social, political, economic, ecological and territorial phenomena within a time and spatial frame, as well as making sense of the hybrid character of today’s spaces experienced through (virtual) urban explorations and data collection. Narratives here could create interesting relations between fact and emotion, provide means to make sense of and understand social phenomena and individual experiences, reflecting the urban environment and its use. 28 The digging into every day surroundings was done through creative mappings of the cities Halle, Hannover and Flensburg – following pre-given research topics. Here the idea was not only to work on an analytical level, but also to create a first conceptual interpretation. Tracing cosmopolitan factors, atmospheres, accelerators and actors in each city, the focus lied on framing them on an urban level as mapped representations and spaces directly lived through their associated images and symbols, and hence the space of inhabitants and users (Lefebvre 1991). As “CREATIVE MAPPINGS” found stories related to the understanding of existing resources and networks of the city (spatial contexts, user constellations, expert and non-expert views, as well as personal reflections on subjectively perceived elements, flows, and processes) were collected, interpret and communicated, and brought together the performative and stable characters of the cities in cartographic mappings in various scales, as well as an additional open
format that helped to communicate the mappings and work on a way of storytelling to complete the survey (video, collage, writing, social media linked to the Cosmopolitan Habitat - website). References for the creative mapping formats, the research collections and approaches of the urban projects were given with the “Palermo Atlas” by OMA and the “Migropolis” Project by Wolfgang Scheppe. Some more ideas what creative mapping could be, were found in the project of “mil casas en tu casa” by arquitectos de cabezera and “mappings-animations” on the platform of tracingspaces.net To facilitate the search and collection of information, each topic and group was provided with an initiative or direct contact person, that should help to bring together the relevant material and give insights to the selected research topics of each city.
