ABSTRACT
Walking is one of the most common and revealing ways to explore a landscape. There are volumes of writing in which researchers report on the landscape knowledge gained by walking, from fields ranging as wide apart as geomorphology (Lukas and Bradwell 2010) and psycho-geography (Coverly 2010). Walking, in our view, holds great promise for obtaining knowledge to inform the design of complex landscapes, and walking can be profitably used in the context of research through designing. Walking is especially suitable for answering research questions dealing with complex and unfamiliar tasks that require engagement with the object of research in order to understand and frame the problem properly. For example, a research project on strategies to integrate new infrastructures for energy production would benefit from engaging through walking. The nature of walking itself can be viewed as experimental (Fischer 2011, p.289). In this context 'experimental' means a test, trial or tentative procedure; an act or operation for the purpose of discovering something unknown, in this case the characteristics and potentials of the terrain crossed by the walk. Using walking as a research method implies being aware of its experimental character. Conducting walking as experiment in landscape research means to intervene and change the object of research. In walking experiments researchers provide a framework for fostering creative engagement and for combining planned and unplanned elements (von Seggern 2000, p.316). The character of a walking experiment can best be described by quoting Bruno Latour: 'A good experiment is not one that offers some definite knowledge, but one that has allowed the researcher to trace the critical path along which it will be necessary to pass so that the following iteration will not be carried out in vain' (Latour 2004, p.196).
