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Coastline as a counter-mapping method

delete2026-03-01
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PRE
AI
E
Erkilic, Gokcen *
DOI:10.1057/s41289-026-00318-6delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
This article examines how coastlines-a spatial and symbolic threshold between land and water-can reshape approaches to urban edge studies and counter-mapping. Building on critical, speculative, and deep mapping, the article proposes the coastline as an interdisciplinary marking system that intersects urban geography, data studies, and design. Drawing on examples from co-mapping workshops of Coastliner Lab, the practice led by the author, and the Istanbul Coastline Atlas, a public digital archive of lost and transformed coastlines, tracing coastlines reveals how wetlands, quays, streams, and basins have been buried, privatized, or reconfigured by large-scale infrastructural developments in the top-down urban regimes of the city. This method is argued to raise further questions about ecological costs and hydro-social relationships. The article argues that coastline counter-mapping is both diagnostic and generative, making environmental change visible while providing shared, geospatial tools for more equitable coastal futures in Istanbul and beyond.
Keywords:
Coastlines
Istanbul
Critical cartography
Counter-mapping
Mapping platform design

Journal

U
URBAN DESIGN International
IF:
2.1
Papers:
56
Citations:
0

Organization

N
Northeastern University
Scholars:
2.5W
Papers: 1.6W
Citations: 3.0W