I love maps. They help us see complicated issues with clarity. But I became fascinated with the maps in Terra Forma for exactly the opposite reason. These beautifully complex and highly speculative maps complicated something that before seemed simple. The longer I looked at them, the more I questioned what it means to map a space in the first place.

I first encountered Terra Forma while looking for new ways to represent environments shaped by invisible processes—things like groundwater pumping, soil contamination, or airborne pollutants. None of these processes show up in standard architectural plans or GIS datasets. As a student interested in how we visualise complex ecological systems, I was drawn to the book's complex drawings that challenge how we map—and, consequently, how we perceive our planet.

The book presents nine speculative mapping models that challenge conventional cartography. Rather than simplifying, they ask us to slow down and reconsider how we understand space. The authors—Frédérique Aït-Touati, Alexandra Arènes, and Axelle Grégoire—combine science, philosophy, and design to reframe the Earth as an active, dynamic, and relational system. That means understanding the planet not as a static backdrop for human activity, but as a constantly evolving set of interconnected processes—where soils, waters, atmospheres, and infrastructures interact in ways that affect and are affected by our interventions.

"Terra Forma. A Book of Speculative Maps" by Frédérique Aït-Touati, Alexandra Arènes and Axelle Grégoire, MIT Press, 2022. Image: LS

As I flipped through the book, two of the models caught my attention: Model I - Soil, which reorients the typical surface-based view of territory, presents the Earth as a living, vertical continuum—from subsurface microbial life to soil chemistry—and challenges the reader to think in depth, not just in plan. It calls attention to the layered materiality beneath our feet—layers that are rarely acknowledged in spatial planning—and asks what role this unseen ground plays in shaping architecture. What does it mean to design with, rather than just on top of, the site? The other, Model V - Space-Time, visualises the temporal dimension of a place, tracing how ecological, atmospheric, and social conditions fluctuate across time rather than across surface area. It made me wonder: what actually is a site? Where does it end? And when? Is it the aquifer passing underneath the surface, or is it the fine dust emitted from the building standing on it? What is a given, and what is ever changing?

Terra Forma doesn’t offer a clear answer. Instead, it shifts your perspective, asking the reader to slow down and question what mapping means, what it includes, and what it excludes. I picked it up hoping to refine my tools, but, when I closed it, I found myself imagining entirely new ones.

I recommend it to other design students, or anyone interested in rethinking how we visualise a building within its entangled context. Some of it can feel a bit abstract, but the illustrations and ideas are well worth pausing over and thinking about long after we’ve closed the book. It's a book that lingers—shifting how we look, what we prioritise, and how we think about, affect, and (especially) how we map our environment.