Before I draw a project I build the map of how its situation really works, a site, a city, a region or an operation, so that every decision rests on that map; for a business, that map is The Operation Map.
← Yuri Leonardo WorksProcess 03 of ten
The map as method
Germinating since 2007, in GHV 2050 Applied in 12 works, 2007–2026 Today: Operations Platform, Site Control, Family Hub
From a situation, I build the map that makes the project possible: the trees of a site, the streets of a medina, a border read as a region. Informal cartography is one of its applications. In my practice today the map has become a system: the rhizome.
The research question
How, from a situation, do I build the map that lets me make the project?
My principles
A rhizome is a three-dimensional, living map.
A map has no scale: the scale appears when it is applied.
I A map before the project · 2016
“From a situation, I build a map that lets me make the project.”
In Dakar, the brief was to map La Medina, the historic sector. I mapped it through the eyes of a first-time visitor: a series of informal maps written in nails, string and spray, a red installation fifty-four metres long, in the OFF Program of Dak'Art 2016.
II The same process, a site · 2011
“It was the same process as in Marcano, where I had to build a map that resulted in the ideal space for the museum, keeping every tree.”
Five years earlier, the map of 107 trees had given the Marcano Museum its ideal space: the plan grew between the trees, and not one was felled.
III Any scale · 2014–2018
The same holds for memory. In Beloved Veils I drew one person from memory twenty-four times, and called the veils informal cartographies, the term of my maps of territory. Two of those studies became Part in Style, at 360 × 240 cm on wood; FAR takes the same studies to 122 × 180 cm. The map stays; the scale arrives with each application.
IV A living map · 2026
This mapping process is an integral part of my work today. Before any application is built, the operation is mapped; at YLW the map has become a system, the rhizome, which grows with every project.
What you can hire today
The Operation Map: your real operation drawn before anything is built. It tells you where the operation breaks and what has to change → The Operation Map.
Formalised in: Operations Platform · Site Control · Family Hub
Request The Operation Map: your operation, drawn before anything is built.
Apply this to your project →Working in English, Spanish and French · Systems and documentation delivered in your team's language
Revised 2026-10-26 · Source: the ten processes register (procesos.json), process PR03 · Revision c88c8d1153