Bring back to life an ancient alpine village: a difficult and stimulant challenge.

What to do? This is the difficult question we had to face, sometimes it is useful to look back to tradition and transpose to present tense something which could focus people's interest (manifacturing, production of cheese). However, by doing that you would create a touristic centre, completely fake and void.

Bringing back to life is something more: it means to have a new social structure, new relationships...

Is it possible to repopulate the village? No, not in this case: the entire village is completely cut off from civil world for 8 months per year, and no one would accept to endure this condition for more than a short period.

So, again, what to do? Through a research on social networks, considering all ages and social status, we collected several opinions about mountain villages and all the activities people prefer to do in isolation or away fron the chaos of the city. The solution was simply to give the opportunity to practice all these activities, every day of the year, even for a short period, in this self-managed village.

When you have to operate in a stratified contest you must pay attention to what is already on the site: we decided to complete the rubbles of ancient houses by maintaning a pure and simple shape that recreates the image of the village. We used a rusty rigid grid for the facade which hides the structure, windows and all facilities required. The main structure is made of local wood and holds the external structure (roof, facades..) and the internal one which is totally independent. The inner part of the building is completely made of wood, creating an interesting contrast whit both the stones of the ancient houses and the external grid.

Since the keyword is "flexibility", we created a series of modules which might supply all facilities and give the possibility to do a wide range of activities. The spaces are created to be divided in two fundamentals functions: social and housing; every different roof borders a housing unit (2 floors, various size) with a kitchen, a bathroom and all housing facilities, while 3 social units are fully equipped to host small meetings, parties, small gyms...

The most interesting thing is that the project is always "in progress" waiting for new necessities to satisfy: now it is up to you, You Choose.