Transect

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"A transect is a cut or path through part of the environment showing a range of different habitats. Biologists and ecologists use transects to study the many symbiotic elements that contribute to habitats where certain plants and animals thrive." Source: CATS (Center of Applied Transect Studies), https://transect.org

"A transect, in its origins (Von Humboldt 1790), is a geographical cross-section of a region used to reveal a sequence of environments. Originally, it was used to analyze natural ecologies, showing varying characteristics through different zones such as shores, wetlands, plains, and uplands. For human environments, such a cross-section can be used to identify a set of habitats that vary by their level and intensity of urban character, a continuum that ranges from rural to urban. In Transect planning, this range of environments is the basis for organizing the components of urbanization: building, lot, land use, street, and all of the other physical elements of the human habitat." Source: Andrés Duany et al., SmartCode & Manual, Miami: New Urban Publications, Inc., 2005

Based on these definitions, the Transect method can be applied in the Living Lab both as a participatory analysis and/or mapping method (e.g. in the form of Transect walks) and as a co-creative design method. Focusing on a line or a path helps to capture the high areal and spatial complexity of landscape or urban contexts in a simple linear form.

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