Mapping the Pig Tale Journey: A multidisciplinary design framework for cultural mapping in an old abattoir

•A multidisciplinary design framework can improve audience reception and engagement in cultural mapping.•Service design helps to improve the experience of the audience as it explores the findings of cultural mapping.•Screenwriting and scenography enable the delivery of cultural mapping results in an effective, narrative and spatial form.

In this paper, we set out to develop new ways to identify and document local cultural elements in sites that are undergoing transformation. By drawing on the insights of cultural studies, screenwriting, scenography and service design, we build a multidisciplinary design framework for mapping culture that pays attention to the ways in which intangible cultural resources of a place could be brought into interaction with its users. As our empirical case, we focus on the Abattoir, a set of derelict but attractive slaughterhouse buildings that are in the process of being converted into commercial and civic premises. All in all, the paper suggests that this kind of multidisciplinary design framework can be used to improve the audience reception and engagement of cultural mapping activities. From the perspective of service design, it is possible to analyse how the audience experiences the results of mapping, and whether this experience could be improved. Screenwriting and scenography, for their part, can be used to express the mapping results in an impressive narrative and site-specific form, supported by affective, visual and spatial elements.