Valentin Zech
Explore Lab
100 Years of Summer: A ski area brownfield as a testing ground to explore ways of how humans and nonhumans can thrive in a warming alpine landscape, together
What happens to ski areas once there is no longer enough snow? When they turn into industrial wastelands in the Alps? With their roads, lifts, pistes and snowmaking systems, these brownfields are places where our concepts of nature and culture clash.
This project questions the human position within the planetary ecosystem while contemplating solutions for changing alpine landscapes: Are we as autonomous from other beings as we like to think? How can alpine landscapes be resilient despite the pressures applied by climate change?
100 Years of Summer proposes a landscape laboratory for artists and scientists in residence, a spatial framework with 6 observatories at different altitudes, a basecamp and a connecting path. Remnants of ski areas provide building materials and create diverse ecosystems to experiment with possible futures for the landscape. The design aims to expand the (architectural) narrative acknowledging the role and experience of nonhumans such as animals, plants, soil, rain and materials. and looks at decay as a chance for more alive architecture.