Introduction

At the time of the Anthropocene, how can we represent a world constantly moving, tracing an unstable Earth? How are new emerging sciences – critical zones – renewing our understanding of nature? And last but not least, how can we make commensurable the different types of knowledge and methods that have the same objective: to understand the Earth?

Every day, architects use maps to perform reality, to make it happen, to show something that doesn’t yet exist, but which is plausible and on which the success of the project depends. With Terra Forma’s maps, the point is to make visible existing elements that do exist, but which cannot be seen in traditional maps, and which cannot be detected if we don’t have the right sensors.

The critical zone refers to the habitable part of the earth, between the rocks and the sky. This term captures the urgency of the habitable condition. Impacted by human activities, this fragile zone is studied by the earth and life sciences in observatories around the world, and in France, through the OZCAR (Observatoires de la Zone Critique, Application et Recherche) and Zones Ateliers networks. These observatories instrument watersheds with sensors to understand ecosystems. These observatories provide the terrain for understanding « the intrusion of Gaia » locally and in different parts of the world. However, critical zones, although a structured research program, are unknown zones, unknown to other disciplines and non-experts, but also to the scientists themselves, who are seeking to understand their dynamics and, especially, the scope of disturbance. 

We propose the exploration of the critical zone through cartography. But to do this, we need to change our frame of reference to better visualize the layers of the critical zone and its cycles. The maps you will explore here are based on an inversion, a reversal of the Earth’s layers: we place the atmosphere and the soil at the center of the map and the rocks at the periphery. We integrate this reversal into a more extensive manual of cartographic potentials, Terra Forma, where 7 alternative map models are invented. At the same time, we are continuing our inquiry into the critical zone: how are these field sciences renewing our understanding of nature?

Finally, the gaiagraphies proposed here stem from our participation in a major TERRA FORMA Equipex science project (whose name is borrowed from the book). These are maps of the pilot observatories and their sensors, which multiply the points of view on the environment so as to better understand the interactions between systems: flux towers, probes, weather stations, soil DNA surveys, camera traps, and so more. These offer various points of view that need to be put together, but this is impossible in traditional maps, which define any place homogeneously with coordinates, but don’t provide a measure of living breath or soil erosion.

This website is structured into three parts. BEFORE EXPLORING provides key understanding of the project with this introduction, the approach of ethno-cartographies and the map template which is used to map the observatories. START TO EXPLORE presents the maps and their sensors in three different contexts having specific attributes, namely Subterranean micro-lives, Life in the snow, and Soil breathing. A last part, Biogeotech entities, presents a map with the sensors developed in the TERRA FORMA scientific project. HOW IS EXPLORING exposes the methodologies used to draw the maps and provides the data documents in pdf about the Fieldworks and the Workshops which were undertaking in the three observatories.

According to John Dewey, an inquiry starts amidst doubt and ends when the tension is released. If the inquiry into the critical zone has begun, it is certainly not over, as we still have to learn how to coexist with the geo and bio entities that compose the Earth. The aim of this research project is to renew our understanding of nature, to better grasp the cosmologies of the beings and elements that shape the Earth’s habitability.