A Vision for the Trient valley. by Alessandro Betta

Connecting

PARTICIPATION OR INVOLVEMENT?

Process

Consequences

TOOLS AND SIMULATIONS

33 A CONTINUOUS PROCESS

A VISION FOR THE VALLEY Things can change also here

Participatory design

Price Valais CHF 5.00 / Rhone-Alpes EUR 5.00

Active research

Participatory processes, crowd mapping, charrette to connect and involve the different realities of the valley in a long-term process of sustainability

Process

Step by step

Sequences of temporary events as tools to foster the valleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economy and peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s connection

Spaces

Slow colonization

The events promoting the reuse of abandoned spaces in the valley and involving them in a continuous adaptation process.

Vision

Open ending

Proposing a process that could continously follow and leaves the possibility for unexpected results. Giving the control to the population

Interview

Lionel Terray

Read the explorer speaking about brave new alpine people We believe in a stronger, active and shared idea of community. Nothing could happen without radical changes.

Elop 7 Alpine Mutations This is a project from group Terray, we never look back, but only towards a better idea of future. We are: Alessandro Betta_Italy AglaĂ¨ Bindi_France Theresa Fitz_Germany Juan Orjuela_Colombia Federico Sanchez_Mexico

Since 2014

Priorities

Connecting

Tools and Proposals

Timeline

Consequences

“Conclusions”

Editorial This magazine is the first step of our proposal to reinforce the connections between the people inside and outside the valley to the place itself.

magazine.

t is not only words written on paper t is much more than this.

A A A A A

magazine is a source of informations about whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happening.

magazine as a mean to make people aware of the potentialities of their valley

magazine as a tool to connect different realities of the region and to start to present events together magazine as a way to involve young people in realizing something for the community, in being sparkles of new initiatives magazine as something different, as a common project for the inhabitants to link them together

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The Alps, more than a territory

What are the priorities for a valley like this? When we approached a context like this, we immediately understood that the main priorities were related to the spirit more than to the physicality of the territory. Changes have to be driven by the community and not left only to external forces.

Lionel Terray

What an alpine valley needs? What are the meanings of sustainability, development or mutations in the alpine context? There is the need for imagining new ways for developing the harsh and nonetheless beautiful landscape and culture found in the Alps. This project is searching for a vision that could deeply transform the way of relating ourselves to this territory. That’s why a great importance has to be given to the process to reach the final goal. This one should not be imposed in people’s mind but needs to be developed with the participation of locals, and people who care enough about the land. What we are going to do is to provide a set of tools [a DIY toolbox] to progressively reach a more resilient and sustainable community.

Grenoble 1921. He is one of our favourite “conquerors of the useless”, inspiration for trying to reach goals apparently impossible.

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S o c i a l o u t p u t s Assess priorities Defining the two main topics on which we needed to work. Understanding the need to involve population in the process to have a better environment

C o n c r e t e

Starting the

Establishment

participatory

of association called “panopticon” in order to collect ideas and launch the “festivals process”

process by meeting the population of the valley and sharing the visions for future development

The association proposes and realises the first cycle of Festivals in

Finhaut

2020

2020 - 2030

2016 - 2018 2017 - 2020 01 - 2015

06 - 2016 03 - 2015

09 - 2015

Establishing a net of

05 - 2015

trails themed on the topics of the festivals.

Releasing an application

Mont Fleuri

o u t p u t s

The mentality of the people starts to be open to changes and the valley is known for its dynamic environment

hotel used as space for meetings and gatherings of village population

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for mobile phones to improve the connection between population and to collect ideas

Along the trail system a series of pavillions

are built to host the events and the trekkers visiting the valley

The sequence of the festivals leads to a progressive appropriation

of the Mont Fleuri hotel that becomes the focal point of the valley

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Image 01. A colorful explosion of creativity, the new center for the valley

How to assess priorities?

Team Terrey Collective of experts in different disciplines, they contributed to tackle the problem with a strong cross-disciplinary approach to this interesting although difficult topic When we first approached ELOP project and the valley of Finhaut it was not clear in our minds where this experience would lead us. But after the first contacts we understood that we were dealing with extremely prolific material if we considered the richness of the environment and, why not?, the richness of people. What was missing according to us was a stronger connection between the different actors in

the valley and the capacity to collect ideas about the mountains. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why our first steps were concentrated on the creation of a stronger network of active people. Thinking of physical interventions immediately made us go for a progressive appropriation of the spaces inside and outside the villages. Our strategy was to include changes in the essence of these interventions: at first,

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Basically we based our work on the idea that a process is more important than a project. Even if the situation appeared to be fixed and hardly changeable, what was important was the need to take into account the capability of people to react to the process itself. From those assumptions we started imagining a progressive strategy that would have to have a deeper and deeper effect on the valley and especially on its population. Our first step was to set up an association to help introducing new ideas and develop people’s mentality.

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Secondly, we proposed to organize different events around the valley, which would allow us to use the spaces in a more or less permanent way. Our third step was to imagine the creation of a “panoptikon”as a building that would show what is happening in the valley by its transformations, subtractions or additions. We choose an abandoned hotel as a symbol of rebirth.

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What to ask? MAXIME.

CAMILLE.

The valley has proven that here it is possible to make things happen, even though it is difficult as people usually refuse the idea that they can exploit their projects also in the valley without leaving for bigger cities.

We don’t actually need proper tourists here... We need more people willing to come and able to appreciate what the valley can offer, people able to bring something to the valley. More than just touching and leaving.

Approach In the beginning of the process we started by getting in touch with the local people living in Finhaut to try to understand their visions, their dreams and wishes, in order not to impose a project but to make it come directly from the physical and social environment of the valley.

Questions

1. M.

1. Que voulez-vous pour l´avenir de Finhaut? 2. Que ne voudriez-vous pas que Finhaut devienne? 3. Quel rêve avez-vouz pour Finhaut? 4. Quelle type de Festival voudriez-vous dans votre region?

1. There is the need for more cultural activities and more animation; we don’t need simple tourists, but more travellers. Expecially young people. 2. We need to avoid to make it a ghost village, a village where people only sleep between working days. 3. I really want a village that could work and sustain on its own; whereeverybody has a duty and organize itself. 4. The most suitable festival for Finhaut could be mountaineering, also related to well-being [like food or cooking, meditation].

1. What would you like for the future of Finhaut? 2. What would you not like Finhaut to become? 3. Which dream do you have for Finhaut? 4. Which type of Festival would you like in this region?

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2. G.pa & G.ma 1. We would like a Modern Finhaut, where car are parked underground and the swimming pool it has been renovated. This means also more people around in a more livable space. 2. We hope youth will not leave leaving a dead village. 3. Clearly there is the need for more hotels and more chalets. 4. The only suitable festival for the valley has to be related to mountaineering . 3. E. 1. More tourism. Because otherwise it’s a dead place 2. I’m scared this will become an abandoned place 3. I hope for more kids living there 4. Of course, mountaineering 4. F. S. 1. People, more people have to know nd come to the valley 2. I’m afraid that without new people this will become a closed place 3. Youth are the ones that bring life and ideas, they need more spaces; and we need better accomodations for sport and leisure 4. Festivals should be focused on environnement and I think music could be a good way to attract people 5. Mr. A. 1. The village doesnìt have to grow, it has to stay like this 2. It has not to become a village like Verbier 3. It’s a very little thing; to have a new covered swimming-pool 4. Mountaineering 6. Elaine 1. The first thing is to keep the train active to get more transports, doctors, hair dresser, hotels, sport accommodations and a spa place. We need to think international and open an international school (with proximity of Chamonix and Martigny there could be people around all the time) 2. I would not answer to this 3. Nature and forests are the best parts of this place, we need to keep them beautiful, support the agriculture and the rural aspect of the area. 4. More art and food culture I think

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7. Maxime - Ancienne Président du Commune 1. That this beautiful village carries on improving in a sustainable way. A better quality of life and a way for the youth and young families to feel home and to stay around. 2. A village where people sleep, or a place where entreprises come to exploit the village, get the money and leave. 3. Somedy living in all the houses, a lively school and dynamic, welcoming shops. Renovations of excisting accommodations. 4. Art – Infinitudes proves that Arts can belong in Finhaut 8. O. 1. We don’t want to loose anymore the young generations 2. I’m really afraid by Finhaut as an empty village 3. The most important thing is to develop the well being as an unique caracter for the valley 4. Imagine to combine Art with Mountains, the ArtPinisme!

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Did you know?

Connecting PAULO FREIRE.

KURT LEWIN.

There is no such thing as a neutral education process. Education can become the ‘practice of freedom’, the means by which men and women deal critically with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.

“Action research is a comparative research on conditions and effects of forms of social research leading to social action” that uses “a spiral of steps, each one composed by a circle of planning, action, and fact-finding about the results”.

If you want to actively involve people in preserving their own environment first you need to reduce the isolation and the lack of communications between the different stakeholders around the valley. And you need also to actively involve the population in the process of improving the place; avoiding to consider them as users and not as producers of their own landscape.

Participatory Design is a design approach where all stakeholders are actively involved in the processes and procedures of design. Traditional design processes commonly include the paying client and consultants within or related to the profession; in participatory design, the users and even the wider public are also recognized as stakeholders and are brought into the process as well. The extent of their involvement differs across projects and can range from merely informing these groups of people in a oneway process, to sharing or delegating roles and responsibilities in partnership with the local communities. The main objective is often to ensure that the end product or outcome of the design process meets the actual needs of this wider group of stakeholders, but there are many other reasons for adopting a more participatory approach as well: • • • •

People have the right to participation. Designers have a social responsibility to people. Everyone is an expert at something. Participation creates ownership of the outcome.

What Participative Design is not? Participative Design is a method not an orientation. Participation is not about abrogating responsibility or escaping accountability as designers. People typically expect designers to provide good advice and make sound decisions, but, as architect Lucien Kroll once said, “I do not want to decide alone”.

Image 02. Lucien Kroll - MèMè Leuven 1970-1972

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Participatory Design - A brief how to

1. First Approach

Stages

Gathering information of the place: the designers should visit the place making a detailed review of the general technical state of the project. All possible information are necessary: not only the ones related to the physical aspects, but also to social or economical aspects. Information of the customer: meeting the community to go over details about the project, the people and links project/people. information and resources: construction material.

· · · ·

First Approach Discovery Process Prototyping Consolidation and Evaluation

Strategies for spaces · · · · · · · · ·

Customized Appropriated Re-adapted Structures Start Medium Linker spaces Drift spaces Intentional Unintentional

How to Evaluate Participatory Design 1st Criteria · Work Quality for workers · Reflection and mutual agreement · Codetermination.

2. Discovery Process The participants use various techniques to understand and prioritize the organization at work and imagine the future workplace. A work group is formed with different actors for planning the development of the project. · · · · · · · ·

Observations Interviews Rules Visits Tool Exploration Workshops Games Meetings

3. Prototyping 2nd Criteria · Collaborative Development · Agreement and Representing Mechanisms · Common Objectives 3rd Criteria · Repetitive Processes

Participants give shape to the ideas imagined in stage 2. Different techniques are used to shape the project: from models to drawings, from photos to collages and sketches. 4. Consolidation and Evaluation Based on the last stage, the team develops different proposals in order to reach the possible solutions. These proposals are discussed and evaluated until the final project is defined. This stage process is not always developed in a linear sequence. Some stages are developed among others and not all of them require the same amount of time and energy.

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Strategies for appropriating the spaces

How to Evaluate Participatory Design

Typologies of spaces

Work Quality according to workers Workers control their own work organization, tools and processes. There is a reflection and mutual agreement between users and designers. Both use the different techniques of 2nd stage to be reassessing continuously the research and synchronizing the different ideas. We can speak of codetermination when users and designers determine together the main criteria to assess; in this way nobody appropriates the project to himself.

· Customized It is mostly characterized by the changes given to a space depending on the desired activity. · Aproppriated Originally created for other purposes, these unconventional spaces change and take shape for the user. · Re-adapted These are also appropriated spaces, which have been remodelled for the users benefit Typologies of structures · Consolidators These structures are built to be appropriated: bases are given to users who can built around them or adapt the space the way they desire.

Collaborative Development Always use the right mechanism of participation is not a “listening tour” where designers listen the users problems and then resolve them. It is a mechanism where they participate in everything, interacting and verifying that the main problem is being resolved correctly until the end. We introduce agreements and representing mechanisms. In most cases, not everybody can be involved in participatory design. In this case they must be represented. These agents should be able to establish disagreements or agreements.

· Linkers They look for connecting big spaces and and are a point of reference inside bigger structures. They are also special places that in some way invite users to socialize and share different activities.

Repetitive Processes · Continuous Participation · Stage review · Reasoned Reflection

Typologies of drifts

Possibles work groups

· Unintentional A change in the architecture that surprises you and gives a new perspective of the project that was not expected. This can be produced by the different behaviours of users, materials, environment, etc. Its not always a good result.

· · · · · · · · · ·

· Intentional You intentionally create a process that will create an unintentional development in the architecture.

Production Work Recycling Materials Community and the Valley Workshops and Conferences Administration Sponsors Engineeringing Architecture and Design Logistics Communication and Media

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our common future

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Image 03. The logo of the new association created to boost ideas and creativity of the people of the valley

How to react to the imputs?

Team Terrey Collective of experts in different disciplines, they contributed to tackle the problem with a strong cross-disciplinary approach to this interesting although difficult topic

As a conclusion, we understood that one of the main problems was the lack of unity and communication within the community. The people are willing to work for a better future but they are divided. They are also scared of becoming a Phantom village, which they already are in our opinion. We all started with the same intuition, therefore we decided to ask a question about festivals organized by a new Association, and every-

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body showed enthusiasm about the idea. After receiving such positive feedbacks from our counterparts we started the work to organize and set up the process leading to the realization of a series of festivals. Our wish: bringing new life to a valley just by introducing special events related to all possible topics.

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Image 04. One of the meeting of the population inside the Mont Fleuri hotel

An Association will be created in order to involve and connect different kind of people to make them work as a team and to further experience and develop the best for the future of the region. The association will be responsible for developing different events every â&#x20AC;&#x153;two yearsâ&#x20AC;? to promote education, communication and technology progress. They will also lead different workshops, and more important, their headquarters will be the main meeting place for the Participatory Round Table where most of the decisions will be taken.

The Association has to work for helping changing the mentality of the people by introducing constantly new ideas and inputs to discuss with the community. The Association will be based inside the Mont-Fleuri hotel; as a symbolic example of a renewal of Finhaut, now filled with possibilities. The Mont-Fleuri hotel will be slowly appropriated and transformed by the association by organizing events and festivals also inside it.

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What is?

The name PENDLE’S ATOM.

FUN PALACE.

Pendle’s Panopticon, ‘Atom’, rests on the hillside above Wycoller village in Wycoller Country Park. Constructed in ferro-cement with a surface coating of metal-based paint, it is both a striking contemporary viewing point and shelter from which to enjoy Pendle’s glorious scenery.

Whether characterised as a giant toy or as a building-sized transformable machine, the project’s interest resides in its radical reliance on structure and technology, its exemplification of notions of time-based and anticipatory architecture. The ultimate goal was a building capable of change in response to the wishes of users.

A ‘Panopticon’ in Modernity Usually a panopticon is a circular building with a central point which allows to observe everything that happens around. A well-known example for a panopticon is la Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. Could you imagine Finhaut as the centre of something? Something bigger than a single building? Maybe the centre of the valley? The concept of ‘A panopticon in modernity’ in the valley of Trient is to allow a person to experience all what happens in the valley with a focus on Finhaut. Although it is physically impossible to have a total overview over the mountains, the centre - situated in Finhaut - will afford the users to overcome this by intensive collaboration of the inhabitants. The population is invited to use the principal of Participatory Design in the ‘Panopticon’ association and the highly interactive crowdsourcing-app.

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Choosing such a particular reference for our project could be seen as provocation as it immediately recalls bad memories and images. But we think that there is the need to go beyond the first impressions we have, exactly like when we speak about the valley. For us Panopticon assumes a completely different meaning as a symbolic space that shows in the same moment all the possibilities happening in the valley thanks to the people.

The goal of the association is to emphasise the richness of the region by the organisation of events and festivals. The ‘Panopticon’ starts and ends the festivals in Finhaut and makes the outputs visible in a resume building. The resume building and the head office of the association improves Finhauts’ important role as the centre of the metaphoric panopticon. The association develops circles around the centre that are worth to visit. The project aims to use existing trails and sights to show the physical outputs of the annual festivals. These outputs are also presented in multifunctional pavilions placed along the circles of the panopticon. Moreover the association provides a crowdsourcing-app to involve as much people as possible in the development. The challenge is, to use the special features in the festivals to bring visitors as well as inhabitants closer to nature and to each other. The system based on participatory design will capture users and visitors in virtual and real networks of creativity, development and broad sustainability.

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Image 05. The net of the different trails and their topics with the position of the pavillions

The trails, first steps of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;festival strategyâ&#x20AC;? Team Terrey

Collective of experts in different disciplines, they contributed to tackle the problem with a strong cross-disciplinary approach to this interesting although difficult topic

The idea is to organize a series of trails around the valley implementing the existent net of small roads and trails and by giving to each one a defined theme. After the first contacts with the population we propose that the main themes to be followed in this net will be art [ArTrail], environment [EnvironmenTrail] and sport [SporTrail]. The three paths are interconnected and punctuated with a

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series of pavilions hosting the most diverse functions: from little exhibition spaces to little shelters for artists in residence or for trekkers rest. Those net represents the first step of a more wide strategy to transform the valley by overlapping different events and their legacies. In this way we would bring progressive transformations inside a people-lead process of development.

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“Alpage” module

Extractable living+eating module

Typical forestry transport truck [8x8]

“Home” [nest] module

seat deposit

changing + tech

“Stage” module

The pavilions around Finhaut are multifunctional places that are very worth to visit. Especially from spring to autumn they welcome quest from different countries and with a various amount of reasons to come there. Hikers appreciate the silence of the mountains and to be close to the nature. The pavilions are attractive resting points for hikers doing day trips or are important stations of the regular mountaineering festivals of Finhaut. Following the aim of the festival, the most important requirements of the pavilions are: Ecological design Auto-sufficient electricity and a multifunctional design of the inside pace The pavilions are a new part of the touristic infrastructure of the valley. They have to fulfill needs for mountaineering activities as well as for art exhibitions and small concerts, that are part of

the regular art festivals with different main topics. The third aim of the festival concept – together with mountaineering and art – is the improvement of the environmental awareness of tourists and the society in general. The pavilions can be used as small lecture halls or as nature labs. In addition they are good examples for energy efficiency and ecological building methods. One of the aims on the construction side is to use as much natural and local materials as possible. The pavilions are built without concrete, steel and other very energy intensive materials that are not close to the sense of sustainability. The second technical goal in the pavilions’ design is, that they only need a very small amount of electricity to fulfill the users’ needs. Walls or windows integrate solar panels meet the requirements for light for art exhibitions and small live concerts during the festivals.

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ArTrails What if we call many young artists to spread out their work around the paths? Walking here will be no more only a matter of health habits, but also a gift for the mind.

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rt can be a powerful temporary element to activate the unused spaces of the valley. With outdoor exhibitions, art is to everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reach and has the potentiality to enrich the landscape and add an extra layer to this experience of exploring the place. Site-specific artworks can create a path along the valley that will connect the most important spots through this open air museum enriched every year with new masterpieces.

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Sustainablicity

our common future

Local decentrated energy production for a new model of community, an advertising and a model for all mountain communities.

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Image 06. Finhautâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research centre about the experiments in combining small size wind and hydro power plants in the alpine environmentt

Hydrowind Combining power sources for a more sustainable energy production. Finhaut research center announces a new method.

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Mont Fleuri The proposal is to take over the Mont Fleuri hotel step by step in a long term process by progressively inserting different functions in it. The modifications will be subtle at first, and then more radical. The shape of the abandoned hotel would represent the collection of all the transformations happening around the valley. From just meeting place for the community to an â&#x20AC;&#x153;alpine theatreâ&#x20AC;? and indoor climbing wall Mont Fleuri hotel is the centre of our strategy.

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We propose to seize the Old abandoned Mont Fleuri Hotel, which is a great option to place the Association. For a start, this place has enough space to develop our ideas, is located in a strategic point of the town and has a great green space around. The appropriation of the hotel will take place in different phases and it will follow a progressive logic in order not to introduce too sudden changes to the environment of the village.

TERRAY

meetings of the association members and between the population; with the possibility to have a space for cooking and eating together. With the evolution of the process, the building could be transformed into an attraction point able to be known also outside the valley.

In the beginning the Mont Fleuri hotel will just host the

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First Floor Exhibition space OfďŹ ce rooms Climbing dome

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Second ďŹ&#x201A;oor Workshop rooms Climbing dome

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Third ďŹ&#x201A;oor Theater Climbing dome

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Fourth ďŹ&#x201A;oor

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Fifth ﬂoor Ofﬁce rooms Exhibition space Climbing dome

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Exhibition

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Ofﬁces

Theater Workshop spaces Climbing dome

Exhibition spaces

Ofﬁces Meeting rooms

Workshop spaces

Section A-A’

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Exhibitions

Theater

Workshops

Exhibitions

Meetings

Section C-Câ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

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A [haut]Bloc

our common future

Climbing walls on existing buildings, the ultimate climbing experience that crosses styles, levels and capacities of the brave athletes.

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T he last edition of A Bloc festival, winner Adam Ondra. The festival has also been the occasion for deep discussions about the fuure for mountain sports.

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Festenvironment

our common future

Small environment dedicated festival will be organized all around the valley with the participation of scientists and researchers. Festivals will involve people in practical workshops and experiments.

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otel Mont Fleuri in Finhaut transformed for H the occasion in an ecological greenhouse to cultivate local products.

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Participatory calendar A detailed organization of the participatory and festival process to explain next yearsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; possible evolution of the community of Finhaut

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S o c i a l o u t p u t s Assess priorities Defining the two main topics on which we needed to work. Understanding the need to involve population in the process to have a better environment

C o n c r e t e

Starting the

Establishment

participatory

of association called “panopticon” in order to collect ideas and launch the “festivals process”

process by meeting the population of the valley and sharing the visions for future development

01 - 2015 03 - 2015

05 - 2015

o u t p u t s White Border Magazine • Issue 001

ho as me ga of po

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The mentality of the people starts to be open to changes and the valley is known for its dynamic environment

The association proposes and realises the first cycle of Festivals in

Finhaut

2020

s 2020 - 2030

2016 - 2018 2017 - 2020 06 - 2016

09 - 2015

Mont Fleuri

otel used s space for eetings and atherings f village opulation

Establishing a net of trails themed

on the topics of the festivals.

Releasing an application

for mobile phones to improve the connection between population and to collect ideas

Along the trail system a series of pavillions

are built to host the events and the trekkers visiting the valley

FestiValais special issue

The sequence of the festivals leads to a progressive appropriation

of the Mont Fleuri hotel that becomes the focal point of the valley

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2015

January

Stages

1st

Meetings

First Meeting Connecting

February

March

April

May

Fixing the Round Table - Groups

Final 1st Stage

Final 2

A-Bloc - La Paray Festival

Witches Downhill Race, Tschäggättä parade Bellalp/Blatten in Blatten and carnival procession in Wiler, Lötschental

Other

Horn Sledge Race and Verbier Xtreme

Music Verbie Intern Festiv

Festival du Film “VISAGES”- Martigny

2016

January

February

Stages

2nd

3rd

Meetings

Final 2nd Stage

12è Festival Gospel Air, Le Festival des Films à Martigny du Présent, Martigny, Journées des Cinq Continents-Martigny

March

April

May

June

4th Final 3rd Stage

Finhaut Events Valais events

July

2nd

Finhaut Events

Valais events

June

Result Analysis

July 1st

Result Analysis

Start P 1st Mountaneering Festival

Witches Downhill Race, Tschäggättä parade Bellalp/Blatten in Blatten and carnival procession in Wiler, Lötschental

White Border Magazine • Issue 001

Horn Sledge Race and Verbier Xtreme

Music Verbie Intern Festiv

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes August

Point

c Festival Ernen, er Festival and national Alphorn val, Nendaz

October

3rd

2nd Stage

c Festival Ernen, er Festival and national Alphorn val, Nendaz

September

4th Final 3rd Stage

Result Analysis

Combat des Reines, Apricot Festival-Saxon, Swiss Food Festival-Zermatt, Folklore Festival-Zermatt, Alpine Music Festival on Triftalp-Saas Grund, Chüefladefäscht (Cow Pie Fest)-Riederalp

Combat des Reines, Wii-Grill Fäscht Wine and Barbecue Fest-Vispterminen, VINEA, Wine Tasting Fair in Sierre, Zermatt Festival, Shepard Festival-Zermatt, Swiss Wrestling, Sheep Procession Gemmi, Leukerbad and Alphorn Festival on Gornergrat-Zermatt, Air Show, Breitling-Sion (every 4 years), Désalpes de la Fouly and Sembrancher-Verbier, Pfyfoltru-Weinfest Week, Varen

Combat des Reines

August

September

October

2nd

November

Final 2nd Stage

December 2nd

3rd

Final 1st Stage

Combat des Reines, Apricot Festival-Saxon, Swiss Food Festival-Zermatt, Folklore Festival-Zermatt, Alpine Music Festival on Triftalp-Saas Grund, Chüefladefäscht (Cow Pie Fest)-Riederalp

November

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Combat des Reines

FestiValais special issue

December

Elop 7

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

2017

January

February

March

April

May

Stages

4th

2nd

3rd

4th

Meetings

Result Analysis

Final 2nd Stage

Final 3rd Stage

Result Analysis

Finhaut Events

Valais events

June

July 1st

1st Environmental Festival

Witches Downhill Race, Tschäggättä parade Bellalp/Blatten in Blatten and carnival procession in Wiler, Lötschental

Horn Sledge Race and Verbier Xtreme

2018

January

February

March

Stages

4th

2nd

3rd

Meetings

Result Analysis

Final 2nd Stage

Final 3rd Stage

Eidgenössisches Jodelfest in Brig-Glis (every three years)

Music Verbie Intern Festiv

June

July

Other

Finhaut Events Valais events

April

May 4th

1st

1st Art Festival

Witches Downhill Race, Tschäggättä parade Bellalp/Blatten in Blatten and carnival procession in Wiler, Lötschental

White Border Magazine • Issue 001

Horn Sledge Race and Verbier Xtreme

Music Verbie Intern Festiv

c Festival Ernen, er Festival and national Alphorn val, Nendaz

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes August

September

October

2nd

November

December

3rd

Final 1st Stage

Final 2nd Stage

Combat des Reines, Apricot Festival-Saxon, Swiss Food Festival-Zermatt, Folklore Festival-Zermatt, Alpine Music Festival on Triftalp-Saas Grund, Chüefladefäscht (Cow Pie Fest)-Riederalp

Combat des Reines

August

September

October

Final 3rd Stage

November 2nd

Final 1st Stage

Combat des Reines, Apricot Festival-Saxon, Swiss Food Festival-Zermatt, Folklore Festival-Zermatt, Alpine Music Festival on Triftalp-Saas Grund, Chüefladefäscht (Cow Pie Fest)-Riederalp

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Combat des Reines

FestiValais special issue

December

Elop 7

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

2019

January

Stages

2nd

Meetings

February

March

April

May

June

3rd

July 4th

Final 2nd Stage

Final 3rd Stage

Result

Finhaut Events

Valais events

Witches Downhill Race, Tschäggättä parade Bellalp/Blatten in Blatten and carnival procession in Wiler, Lötschental

Horn Sledge Race and Verbier Xtreme

Music Verbie Intern Festiv

2020

January

March

April

May

Stages

4th

2nd

3rd

4th

Meetings

Result Analysis

Final 2nd Stage

Final 3rd Stage

Result Analysis

Other

February

Result Analysis

Finhaut Events Valais events

June

July 1st

2nd mountaineering festival Witches Downhill Race, Tschäggättä parade Bellalp/Blatten in Blatten and carnival procession in Wiler, Lötschental

White Border Magazine • Issue 001

Horn Sledge Race and Verbier Xtreme

Eidgenössisches Jodelfest in Brig-Glis (every three years)

Music Verbie Intern Festiv

t Analysis

c Festival Ernen, er Festival and national Alphorn val, Nendaz

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes August

September

October

2nd

November

TERRAY December

3rd

Result Analysis

Final 2nd Stage

Combat des Reines, Apricot Festival-Saxon, Swiss Food Festival-Zermatt, Folklore Festival-Zermatt, Alpine Music Festival on Triftalp-Saas Grund, Chüefladefäscht (Cow Pie Fest)-Riederalp

Combat des Reines

August

September

October

Final 3rd Stage

November

December

2nd Final 1st Stage

Combat des Reines, Apricot Festival-Saxon, Swiss Food Festival-Zermatt, Folklore Festival-Zermatt, Alpine Music Festival on Triftalp-Saas Grund, Chüefladefäscht (Cow Pie Fest)-Riederalp

Final 2nd Stage

Combat des Reines

FestiValais special issue

Elop 7

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

How to put together what happens? Festivals, conferences, workshops and the realization of the trail net together with the pavillions and the appropriation of Mont Fleuri hotel are processes will take time to occur. So there is the need for designing a tool that could continuously involve people in proposing and discussing new ideas and changes for the valley.

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Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

T Federico Sanchez Engineer It is fundamental that the valley will not rely on a single energy source in the next years; there is the need for a more diffuse and smaller scale network of productive sites to improve the environment and local community. Energy production elements could also become tourist attractions.

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he app has a very important role in our project as it is one of the main connecting tools to involve everyone in an active process of constant dialogue. The main objective of the Finhaut App is to reinforce the process of participatory design as well as widening the range of crowd sourcing outside the town. In this app you will find basic information about the village, a guide to the new events and its appropriated spaces, the App will also feature a QR - Code scan which will be direct you to our website where all the ideas will be collected and analysed carefully. Another huge feature of the app is to inform and connect with people all around the world.

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Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

Community Work and Sense of Place: Case Analysis in Finhaut

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Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

Community Work and Sense of Place: Case Analysis in Finhaut. Introduction: Elop is a learning and teaching platform for students and academics of different nationalities and disciplines. It focuses on several places which are subject to challenges, and proposes projects to answer those challenges. It follows a trans-disciplinary design process in order to achieve a collaborative work, therefore allowing a wider range of solutions to any problem brought to the teams. Elop*7 is based in Finhaut, in the Trient valley in the Swiss Alps, near the French and Italian borders. According to the Elop booklet, it is a small village composed of about 400 inhabitants, equidistantly positioned between the cities of Chamonix (France) and Martigny (Switzerland). It was historically a holiday destination at the start of the Twentieth Century, especially for the British, who were seeking the pure and fresh air of the countryside. Back then, the main mountain activity was hiking, and Finhaut suffered with the development and generalisation of sports such as skiing or mountain biking. Its location was really interesting at the time as it is positioned in a valley that is easily accessible (a train track was built linking it to Chamonix in 1908), and it proposes paths in all directions to explore the surrounding mountains. It is also very close to the Mont-Blanc and tourists could easily cross the border to admire the view with the assurance of being back the same day. When Mountaineering and mountain

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sports started to become popular, tourism in the Alps changed: it was no longer a passive tourism coming to enjoy the landscapes and the beauty of the place, but a tourism of actions, attracted by the various challenges offered by the area. Cities and villages had to adapt to the situation and to propose new leisure activities to their visitors. Finhaut did not follow this development, maybe due to a lack of spontaneity, but also because of the disadvantage of its situation. The village has been built on the face of a mountain, and is too hilly and narrow to welcome a skiing centre or any extended accommodation. Its accessibility, which is very good in summer, becomes problematic when winter comes, and it is not rare that people get stuck in the village by the snow for a couple of days. It means that for tourists it gets impossible to go up to the ski tracks or down to the main towns. Thus, little by little, the nineteen hotels of Finhaut emptied themselves and the place got forgotten. Towns and cities who had gained their reputation from winter sports also started to develop summer activities and monopolised the tourism economy. Chamonix, for example, is still one of the most famous destination in the Alps. In the most recent years, Finhaut and its region also suffered of the price competition with France and Italy. Switzerland is a rich country but is also really expensive compared to the rest of Europe. This combination of elements reduced the popularity of Finhaut and more generally of the region Valais. It became a peaceful countryside place, lost in the middle of more interactive and lively spaces, still tranquil and beautiful, but not a central

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attraction anymore. The main noticeable result of these changes is probably its slow depopulation still seen today. In the second half of the Twentieth Century, the valley of Trient acquired a fresh economical boost with the construction of dams for electricity production. There are three of them around Finhaut: the Barbarine dam, the Vieil Emosson dam and the Emosson dam. These buildings required hiring people for their construction but also their maintenance, and had an important impact on the profile of the region. The consequences of this impact are still visible today, as the renovation of the Barbarine dam started in 2011. It is necessary to observe that even though this renovation created employment in the region, it is temporary, and unfortunately most of the workers have only moved here from East European countries for the duration of the job and are not planning on staying in the area afterwards. However, this renovation still offers a really positive economical aspect to the region. The private company working on the site is indeed using Finhaut and five other communes’ water, which means that they receive money from it. Thus, Finhaut’s “budget rose from 3.5 million to 35 million francs.” (ELOP booklet.). Even though the electricity is not going to be provided to the people of the region (it is going to be used for train companies), they will still be able to benefit from it. The problem Finhaut is willing to solve at the moment is actually directly linked to this money that has been given to them. According to the Mayor, the community

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has been trying to decide on how to use it, but have been facing difficulties to agree on anything, as it is hard to compromise between individual and communal interests. Moreover, this plan for the money will be spread over the next hundred years, and more of it is meant to be delivered in the future. The investment therefore needs to be long term and the conception of such a project requires vision and some risk-taking. The commune of Finhaut has asked Elop*7 to help them in finding solutions for their future. Elop created eight teams of five students in order to work on different projects and solutions, and they were tasked with looking at problems such as; What personal and professional impact can the Elop project have on its participants? What are the advantages of the use of transdisciplinary and transnational teams? How accurate can be a project created by people from outside the community be? Could Elop projects be a threat to Finhaut’s identity? What is the responsibility of an Elop member towards the other members? Towards the community? Is a hundred year vision concrete enough to be relevant to Finhaut’s problem? This paper will discuss the solution considered by one of the Elop teams, Team Terray. The team working process is a good example on how an Elop team can provide work. Their first assessment is that the problem of tourism is Finhaut is mainly due to a negative image that the community has of the word, and also to a lack of connection between the inhabitants. As a result of this, their first intervention would be a festival,

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

which is a way of interaction with the local community as well as an opening to the outside world. Their vision is therefore not definitive but is meant to be built throughout the process with the participation of Finhaut’s community. In a second time, this essay will discuss the accuracy of the use of transdiscplinary and transnational teams. This system has several impacts within the teams, as the participants need to consider new ways to work and to appreciate the different inputs that can be brought by his co-workers. On a personal level, this working platform requires a strong sense of adaptation and facilitation. It also allows connections with people from a different backgrounds and with different skills, which opens new perspectives and can help to improve the general point of view. Elop system therefore works on three different levels: the person, the team, and the entire group. Finally, this essay will propose a critical approach to the Elop process. Elop, being an innovative and creative platform, raises several technical, moral and cultural questions. First of all it opens the reflection on place identity: is Finhaut struggling to find solutions for itself because of a lack of identity? What role is played by the landscape, resources and people who are inherent to the place and its representation? There is also a psychological aspect that needs to be considered by the Elop members. How can any changes happen in a place if the inhabitants of this place are not open to changes? Why would people suddenly change their habits and behaviours? In behavioural science, this area of research is called Nudge Theory. And as a final point, this essay will

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explore the moral characteristics inducted by Elop: as a member of Elop, what have I been asked for? Why has Elop been chosen to solve this problem, how can a group of strangers propose solutions for a place from where they do not belong? Team Terray. Team Terray is composed by two students in engineering, two students in architecture and one student in Creative Studies. The two engineers are German (Theresa) and Mexican (Federico), the architects are Columbian (Juan) and Italian (Alessandro) and the Media Student is French (Aglaé). The way this team is working is similar to the way the rest of the teams are working. All of them have different methods to address the project but, as W. & J. West state, “when looking over at the range of methods available, it is possible to conclude that most tend to follow a similar process of application: assessment, planning of the goals, implementation, termination, evaluation and review. This process, however, tends to disguise their differences in practice.” (2006:52). When the problem of Finhaut was presented to the team their first thoughts were directed towards the inhabitants of the village, and subsequently the inhabitants of the entire region. They tried to reduce the issue by analysing the main actors that could be included in the project and the part that they could or could not play in it. After studying the profile of activity and the number of companies and associations in the region, and interviewing locals about their hopes and fears about Finhaut’s future, the team came to two conclusions:

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Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

the companies, associations and the people had communication problems as well as a lack of connection. They are working separately, and the people do not necessarily have a clear idea of what they are creating. On the other hand, everybody has the same fears for the future: the feeling that Finhaut and the all region are going to become a ghost area, or if not completely deserted, only inhabited by people who would be working far away and coming home only to sleep, not contributing to any regional activities. The first idea resulting from these two conclusions was that the only chance to counter this bleak vision was to convince the main actors of the region to connect together in order to build a project themselves. Team Terray therefore decided to create an Association open to all the current local companies, which would have the sole aim of making the region more interactive and lively. Thus, team Terray is working on a process more than on a product. “In a literal sense development ‘process’ means concern with the ‘progress’ or ‘course’ of a project.” (D. Mosse, J. Farrington and A. Rew 1998:4). Their working progress is as important to them as their final product, as creating an Association is applying a working process within a group of people. The first steps taken in their work progress would be the first steps taken by the Association once it is created: ice-breaking exercises, learning how to get to know each other, learning to work together and defining a common plan of attack. The idea of it is to implant changes from inside the community, in a slow process which would be accepted by

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the inhabitants. Instead of developing mass tourism or taking over the creation of a new building in the village, team Terray believes that social connections is an open door to economical and social development in the region. They had to face a challenge: when asked what they did not want in their future, some people from Finhaut answered “no tourism” (Orjuela, J. 2014.), but when asked what they wanted most they answered “more visitors”. The difficulty here is to define the term “visitors” and to actually differentiate it from “tourists”. In many ways, they are the same: they come only for a limited time, in most cases they are not from the place they are visiting and their impact on the economy is irregular but beneficial for the time of their visit. They need the same type of accommodations (hotels, chalets) and often are coming for a particular purpose. Team Terray thought that the analyses of this purpose would be the best way to define the difference between both. “Some have argued that rural tourism is inherently contradictory because mature tourism development involve a process of urbanization (Cohen, 1984). Noronha (in Cohen, 1984) alleged that when tourism is fully developed, it becomes institutionalized, resulting in the host of community’s loss of control over the industry and its share of the benefits.” (L. C. Harrison and W. Husbands, 1996:279). Mountain tourists appreciate the use of mountain resorts where they can socialise after a day of skying or hiking. However, it was made clear by the people of Finhaut that they did not want to allow their village to become another Alpin Resort. “A further characteristic applicable to

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

many tourist-host encounters is an apparent lack of knowledge, understanding or sensitivity on the part of tourists to local culture and custom in tourism destination areas.” (R. Sharpley, 1994:167). The problem for Finhaut is to find a solution to develop a kind of “soft tourism”, that respects the region and that is not necessarily related to a leisure tourism. The organisation of a festival as a first intervention in the region was partly resolving this problem. People attend a festival for cultural reasons, because the theme defined interests them. If festival organisers take the place in consideration when choosing a theme then the festival-goers will be in a respectful state of mind towards this place when they get there. “All festivals and special events occur because one person or a group of people believe that holding an event will fulfil some need in a community, region, organisation or company.” (McDonnell, I., Allen, J. & O’Toole, W., 1999:60). There is already a festival in Finhaut, which began only a couple of years ago and which takes place on only one day. Obviously the impact of such an event remains minimal but it is the proof that Team Terray is not alone in thinking that it is what the village needs to face its problem of non-development. McDonnell, Allen & O’Toole quote Hall and Getz earlier in their book to remind us that “all events have a direct social and cultural impact on their participants, and sometimes on their wider host communities […].” A festival always gives an economical boost to a region (as long as it is successful). The numbers of visitors in the region is more important which suggest that the hosting

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community needs to develop its hotels and restaurants, the building companies can be solicited to improve the accommodations, suppliers in food and drink increase their activity. In addition to the economical impact a festival in Finhaut could have an important social impact. The little community of the village needs a symbol that would show the link between the inhabitants: such an event could prove that they agreed on how to develop Finhaut and that they are working towards the same future. The Elop project is therefore working in the service of a community, but it is also a way for the participant students to develop their own skills and to learn from other people skills. Learning from Disciplines, Working with Nationalities. When compared to the other teams of the Elop project, Team Terray has a particular profile. Most of the participant to the projects are engineers or architects, and Terray is the only team that welcomes a Creative Student. The group therefore benefits from an artistic input that might not be as obvious in the eight other groups. This factor had an instant influence on their functioning as their icebreaking exercises were based on theatre techniques. While other teams were already working hard and finding ideas on how to improve Finhaut, the members of Terray were having quite a unique experience. Using a rehearsal technique of immersion theatre inspired by Yoga, they were trying to feel what a Finhaut inhabitant would feel in a catastrophic

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Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

situation. This was in preparation to a presentation happening the next day, and in the process they agreed on using the very same technique of immersion for this one. Of the five members of the group, two students had already done theatre as a hobby, one had studied it and two had never really performed in their lives. Then, the aim of the performance was not to reach a very high standard but to give a simple representation of the team’s way to work. It also allowed them to create strong bonds amongst them, as they had to rehearse together. This is often a way to unify a group and to learn to know each other. When one has a limited time to build something with other people that will be looked at and judged by an audience, they cannot be shy or superficial, they have got to go into the heart of their work all together for it to be successful. Nijstad, B. notices “five stages of group development: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.” (2009:26). “Norming” and “performing” which consist in “agree[ing] on group’s goals” and “achieving the group’s task”, are melted in only one step when it comes to theatre, as it is when working on achieving the task that performers define their goals. Indeed, a performer needs to start rehearsing to be able to give an intention to his character. Team Terray therefore worked on a project that helped them to define their goals: using participatory design to make of Finhaut an interactive place. This use of theatre is similar to what Petra Kuppers call Community Performance. “I understand community performance to be work that facilitates creative expression of a diverse group of people, for aims

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of self expression and political changes.” (2007:3) and further: “Equally importantly, in my definition, community performance rests in process rather than product: in the act of working together, allowing different voices, bodies and experiences to emerge.” (2007:4). Thus, Terray’s team process mentioned in part one is a direct result of this ice-breaking theatre technique used at the creation of the team. Each member was involved on an equal level from the start and the creative input allowed them to define the essence of their project with the idea of Participatory Design. The link between the latest and Community Theatre is obvious: “Every community performance practitioner has to define for her or himself what ‘changing the world’ means, what ‘connection’ means and what ‘community’ means for them.” (Kuppers, 2007:8). Even before they concretely started to work on their project, team Terray had unconsciously already involved Finhaut’s community in their work. However, theatre is not the miracle solution to group work and communication problems. By no means is Terray a better team than the others: they also have their dysfunctions. These have been made more obvious as soon as the team departed Finhaut and had to start working online. Agreeing on meeting times, respecting the length of meeting and being all present in an online meeting is still a challenge for the team, who is slowly trying to overcome it. In order to do so, the members of the team have to acquire some skills in facilitation. According to Christine Hogan, “facilitation is concerned with encouraging open dialogue among individuals with different perspectives so that diverse assumptions

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

and options might be explored.” (2002:10). Coming from five different countries and five different background, it is necessary to understand within the group that some habits that one would have could be perceived as disrespectful for another. For example Latin people (French or Italians) engage in a conversation differently than a German person would do: cutting someone’s sentence is not a sign of rudeness but a sign of commitment to the conversation. On another hand it is also important that as well as the nationalities, the disciplines of each member of the group must be taken into account. In a scientific article written by a group of students who all participated in a transdisciplinary project they evaluate that on one side, if one member’s discipline is not represented well, his role will progressively become “peripheral” or even nonexistent. However, on the other side, if the students are working to closely it can alter the innovating side of the project. “Thus, a major challenge facing future transdisciplinary research initiatives is to achieve an appropriate balance between diversity and debate among investigators on the one hand, and intellectual integration and social support on the other.” (Stokols, D., Harvey, R., Gress, J., Fuqua, J., Phillips, K.; 2004.). Each voice counts, but none of them are more important than the others. On a wider level the transdisciplinary teams of the Elop project are helped by the fact that they are multiple. Each team regularly has to report its work to the other ones, which allows a deeper reflection. Instead of the incidental reflection that happens when members are communicating within their teams, the feedback and the ideas given by the other teams help to have a critical point

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of view on the provided work. Thus, Elop is a productive personal and group experience. However Finhaut project raises other questions on an intellectual, moral and theoretical level. Place, People, Identity. When Elop students started working on the Finhaut project, one of the first problems that was raised was the one of ‘identity’. They were invited to think about this term in relation to the people living in the valley as well as to the place itself. Of course, ‘identity is not a problematic only for Finhaut, it could be relevant to any other places, but different aspect of the project makes it particularly interesting to look at. Elop students cannot start a project without considering the inhabitants of the valley. One could think it is not as problematic as it seems, and that it is easy understanding their sense of community and identity. However it is not that simple when all of the factors come into consideration. If it is granted that nationality defines one’s identity, then Switzerland would not have a common identity: there are three official languages in the country, with three different national aspirations (German, Italian and French). Thus, Finhaut and Valais’s inhabitants would be considered as French. But this cannot be accurate when the differences between one side of the border and the other are highlighted: the accent, the religious practice, the currency... However there are similarities between them, as there are similarities with the Italians living on the other face of the mountain. Could it be then that the identity could

FestiValais special issue

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Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

be found in the landscape of the mountain? But as stated by Tim Cressel, on his definition of landscape: “it combine[s] a a focus on the material topography of a portion of land (that which can be seen) with the notion of vision (the way it is seen). Landscape is an intensively visual idea. In most definitions of landscape the viewer is outside of it. This is the primary way in which it differs from place. Places are very much something to be inside of.” (2004:10). Thus, the identity of the people could not be defined by their landscape because they are not part of it, but only its witnesses. Nevertheless, it would be also inaccurate to define people’s identity by the area they live in. The place has its own, proper, independent identity, which is different to the one of the people, even if they can relate to each other. Harvey argues that one of the problems when it comes to reflection about place identity and community is “a persistent identification of place with ‘community’. Yet this is a misidentification. On the one hand, communities can exist without being in the same place […]. On the other hand, the instances of placing housing single ‘communities’ in the sense of coherent social groups are probably -and I would argue, have for long been- quite rare.” (quoted in Cressel, 2004:68). In this way, Finhaut is more than a place composed by people and the people from Finhaut are a lot more complex than only inhabitants of this place. This is the problem of ‘identity’ in general: there is not one unique and precise definition of it, but a composition of different elements and factors that together are its definition. It is necessary to embrace this idea to provide a work relevant to a place and a community: there is no guide

White Border Magazine • Issue 001

that can be read which would give a perfect definition of who or what they are. Their identity can only be understood if time is spent amongst them. Only through patience, observation and communication might it be possible to get a sense of it. Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration is that identity can also change with time, following evolution and civilisation changes, so it is never something to be taken for granted. A way to understand a community’s identity can be to work with them. Team Terray overcame this by using the theory of “Participatory Design”. Initially an architectural concept, the Participatory Design has been mainly developed by Alejandro Aravena, Jan Lim and Mizah Rahman. On their official website the designers and architects creators of this concept have defined Participatory Design as “a design approach where all stakeholders are actively involved in the processes and procedures of design.” (Lim & Rahman, 2014). The principle is therefore to work with the community to consider all the solutions that can be found together. In behavioural psychology, this technique is close to the idea of ‘Nudge’, which is a theory that proposes that even though all human beings make their own choices it is possible to softly guide them. R. Thaler and C. Sunstein justify the concept by stating that “the false assumption is that almost all people, almost all of the time, make choices that are in their best interest or at the very least are better than the choices that would be made by someone else” (2008:9) Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness. Yale University Press. Thus, it is possible -and rather likely- that the people of

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

Finhaut appear reluctant to any project that could be proposed to them. It would be then necessary to prove to them that our idea is also theirs and to involve them from the start of the project to the end. However, convincing people that they are working towards the same goal and for their interests would not be accurate if the Elop students did not define their own interests in the first place. The situation of Finhaut raises a moral question: why Elop? Why would students from all over the world would be efficient to offer a future to a place they had never heard of only six months ago. This method in some ways can be seen as really patronising. It recalls the very criticised methods of Western charities imposing themselves to the Third World imagining they have a solution to ‘bring them happiness’. But this is not what Elop is about, and this needs to always be remembered by its participants. The interests of Finhaut’s inhabitants will always be priority before theirs. Nevertheless, the Students still have lessons to learn from their projects. In the case of Bangor University the Elop project Alpine Mutations is really interesting because it is a case study that is practicable in North Wales. Tourism in North Wales has always been problematic, due to local, economical and accommodation reasons. It remains an incredibly beautiful country full of touristic resources, but unfortunately stuck behind its actual potential. One of the main similarities between Valais and North Wales is the inhabitants’ desire to keep the beauty and the serenity of their territories. Special events can then be the answer for both places. An accurate example on how such solu-

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tions have an important beneficial impact can be found somewhere else in the United Kingdom. In summer 2014, the county of Yorkshire was welcoming the Tour de France Grand Départ. In his paper “Tourism”, Gary Verity reveals that “Public opinion and awareness of Yorkshire has rocketed since the Grand Départ -more than 1/3 of the UK population had their opinions on Yorkshire positively changed thanks to the event, with ¼ of the country now wanting to visit the county, according to the Research Bods Study” (2014:9). North Wales already has a couple of events of this kind that are really popular, such as Menai Bridge Seafood Festival which started in 2013 bringing over 10,000 people into the little village. This is only a start though, and the example of Finhaut can be a springboard to help North Wales develop their touristic economy. Conclusion. Thus, Elop*7 Alpines Mutation raises a lot of questions which were not necessarily obvious from the start. On the first level, it is highly educative because it explores different aspects of group working and group process. It is a reflective activity, where each person is invited to learn from other people, each group from other groups. On the second level, the transdisciplinary facet of it contains an inestimable innovative potential: there is not one frame of thinking for a given problem, but multiple, which all merge together give an unexpected answer. Finally, the project is an intense human experience which requires its participants to show diplomacy and carefulness towards the related people. It would be indeed a faux-pas to consider Finhaut’s problem as a personal

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Elop 7

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

challenge to solve without organising it with the involvement of its inhabitants. Finhaut is a place which deserves being considered just like any other place, which should be respected as somebodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home. At a time when globalisation can be a source of fear and has a negative connotation, because it is seen as a threat to local development, cultures and economy, in a world when individuals are worried about not getting any recognition and respect, it is important to remind people that working together, whatever our background and origins, is always innovative and beneficial.

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Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

Bibliography Allen, J., McDonnell, I., & Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Toole, W., 1999. Festival and Special Event Management. Milton: National Library of Australia.

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Nijstad, B. A., 2009. Group Performance, Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Orjuela, J., 2014. Team Terray Survey to People of Finhaut. Unpublished.

Cresswell, T., 2004. Place: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Sharpley, R., 1994. Tourism, Tourists & Society. Huntingdon: ELM Publications.

Fuqua, J., Gress, J., Harvey, R., Phillips, K., & Stokols, D., In Vivo Studies of Transdisciplinary Scientific Collaboration, American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Feb 2005, pp 202-213. Available from: http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S07493797%2804%2900296-X/abstract [Accessed 08/01/2015).

Thaler, R. & Sunstein, C., 2008. Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness. Yale University Press.

Farrington, J., Mosse, D., and Rew, A., 1998. Development as Process: Concepts and Methods for Working with Complexity, New-York: Routledge. Harrison, L., & Husbands, W., 1996. Practicing Responsible Tourism: International Case Studies in Tourism Planning, Policy and Development. New-York: Wiley.

Uknown, 2014. Elop Booklet. Unpublished. Verity, G., 2014. Yorkshire Grand DĂŠpart, Tourism, The Journal of The Tourism Industry. Autumn 2014. p.9. West, J., and West., W., 2006. Social Work Process and Practice. Approaches, Knowledge and Skills, New-York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hogan, C., 2002. Understanding Facilitation: Theories and Principles, London: Kogan Page Limited. Kuppers, P., 2007. Community Performance: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Lim, J., & Rahman, M., 2014. Participate in Design. [Online] Available from: http:// participateindesign.org/ [Accessed the 9/01/2015].

FestiValais special issue

Elop 7

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

ELOP process: Team Terray statements

White Border Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Issue 001

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

PROJECT REPORT – STATEMENTS THERESA FITZ 1st – PHYSICAL KICK-OFF In general I know what is meant by sustainability. It’s the challenge to find a good balance between society, nature and economy. My studies – environmental engineering – are very focused on the nature part. Sustainable buildings, modern sanitary systems, waste treatment and eco-friendly energy production. I realized that these aren’t the main challenges in Finhaut and that I’ve to leave my normal working fields and attitudes behind. It was hard work to define the needs of the local society independent from the things I normally do at university. It’s not necessary to have a biogas station in a village with 400 inhabitants or to think about a transportation system if there are already roads and a train. During the week in Finhaut all team members came to the conclusion, that social relationships and an eco-friendly economy are more important to bring forward the region. 2nd – WORK IN PROGRESS – 1st REVIEW Back home working on the project had become more complicated. Different schedules and a lot more other subjects at university made it hard to work as fast as in Finhaut. We slowed down and had some very bad organized VCs. All of us had some new and more concrete ideas for the project, but they were very separated from each other and not very

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clear to all team members and to the audience. Finally we weren’t able to present our ideas precisely in the first review. 3rd – WORK IN PROGRESS – 2nd REVIEW For me it was really important to analyse what went wrong in the first part of our collaboration process and until the 2nd review. In conclusion we organised ourselves better. We prepared agenda points for our meetings, agreed on a fix meeting time and gave concrete homework for the next meeting. Therefore google drive documents became very important for our collaboration. This tool offered the possibility to comment the work of the others and to read the hints of all team members without a discussion in an extra meeting. 4th – FINAL OF THE PROJECT The work of the last weeks was a success in my eyes. Just some days before the final presentation we are well prepared and nearly finished with the project. It was a great experience.

FestiValais special issue

Elop 7

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

Juan Orjuela

and with your life going on.

From the beginning we tried to understand clearly which was the main goal and problems that are facing the valley, so we could begin with a proper transformation sensible to the different demands.

After one review we understood one of he main problems was to be more efficient in our meetings and work as a team. We improved a lot by making an agenda and leaving clear tasks for everyone at the end of the meetings.

The main goal we conceived was to encourage the progress of the valley in all aspects as possible. Therefore we agreed to have always present two main priorities, the environment and the people. Connecting the people and low impact proposals, these were fundamental aspects for developing our project. On the other hand my team is extremely transdisciplinary. As a way to understand each other we agreed we had to think out of our professions in order to get on a common language and develop a project with a different vision - the people’s vision. This made our work a lot easier. Therefore we decided to introduce Participatory Design as an axis of development. Our problem was that we were not so clear how on how to make this understandable and how to make a project out of it. We had some wrong interpretations of our project in the different reviews. We always thought that our team was strong when we worked together, but after we separated, the progress became a lot slower and disorganized. After all it is difficult to keep the discipline when you are so far away

White Border Magazine • Issue 001

In my opinion, may be it was not the result expected by Elop but it is also a valid approach, which aimed directly for our main goal. I think I´m lucky to participate in this team and I’m proud of the persistence of everyone to defend our ideas.

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

PROJECTSantillano Federico REPORT – STATEMENTS Physical kickoff THERESA FITZ My expectation towards the ELOP project 1st – fulfilled were PHYSICAL in a KICK-OFF different way to the one I In generalatI know expected the physical what is kickoff meant inbyFinhaut. sustainIability. was expecting It’s the challenge a very technical to find aproject good balin ance between which I could collaborate society, nature with and my engineereconomy. My point ing studies of –view environmental to improve an engineering architecture – are very The project. focused first surprise on the nature I had was part.toSusmeet tainable my teambuildings, which is extremely modern sanitary rich andsystems, diverse, waste treatment regarding nationality, and eco-friendly cultures andenergy backproduction. grounds. When the problem of the town was I realized that presented to us, these it was aren’t clear thethat main thechalsolulenges tion wasinnot Finhaut an architectural and that I’veone. to leave We had my to normal put asideworking a big part fieldsofand our attitudes backgrounds behind. and It wasthinking start hard work in atodifferent define the areaneeds of study, of the new localmost for society of usindependent and work together from thetothings discover I itnormally and embrace do at university. it and findIt’s outnot a feasible necessary soto have“Participatory lution: a biogas station Design”. in a village We developed with 400 inhabitants that idea until or the to think last presentation, about a transportation when we system ifour showed there firstare results, already obtaining roads and a good a train. During theform response weekthein coaches Finhaut alland team people memfrom bersvillage. the came to the conclusion, that social relationships and an eco-friendly economy are morereview First important to bring forward the region. 2ndprepare To – WORK for INthePROGRESS first review –we1stsettled REVIEW a Backtohome time meetworking at the video on theconferences project hadinbecome more Scopia. At the complicated. first meetingDifferent it was clear schedules that itand wasa lot really more difficult othertosubjects settle a atfixed university time to made since meet it hardwetoare work 5 members as fast as inin the Finhaut. team We slowed plus the coach down andand all had of ussome havevery different bad organized and changing VCs.schedules. After acceptAll ofthis, ing us the hadmeetings some newwere andconstant more concrete and ideas for thebutproject, productive totally but irregular they were regarding very separated Thanks schedule. from each to the other video andconferences not very

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we started clear to all team working members and developing and to themore audithe ence. idea of participatory design for Finhaut. The Finally firstwereview weren’t was able a little to present difficultour for ideas us, since precisely it is inreally the first hardreview. to represent our ideas as a team, so the feedback we got from the review 3rd – WORK was to INmake PROGRESS our ideas–clearer 2nd REVIEW and present For me itthem was inreally an understandable important to analyse way. what went wrong in the first part of our colSecond laborationreview process and until the 2nd review. In conclusion we organised ourselves better. Basically we started theour same way We prepared agendaworking points for meetas before, through conferences ings, agreed on a fixvideo meeting time andand gave personal We progressed lot in the concrete tasks. homework for the nextameeting. proposal Finhaut, sadly we became couldn’t Thereforefor google drivebud documents find good wayfortoour present it to the other very aimportant collaboration. This teams and coaches, therefore, there was tool offered the possibility to comment thea lot of of confusion among theread audience re- of work the others and to the hints garding presentation. for our team all team the members withoutBut a discussion in an everything was clear, we know the project extra meeting. and we understand it, the big problem is presentations. 4th – FINAL OF THE PROJECT The work of the last weeks was a success Final in mypresentation eyes. Just some days before the final presentation we are well prepared and nearly finished We started withworking the project. for the final presentation It was at the end a great of the experience. last review, focusing on creative and understandable ways to present our project and results. We decided to present a video that can explain easily our idea as well as a magazine that would show our progress and future scenarios for the village. But I am glad to say that with bad and good experiences it was an excellent adventure.

FestiValais special issue

Elop 7

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

AglaĂŠ Bindi

individually between them.

I was not actually prepared for this little Elop experience. I came without knowing what it was all about and I had missed the virtual kick-off. My first reaction was actually to be really confused about what was asked to us and the reason why I was here... What was I meant to film again?

As for the first week, the last week was a success. Being all together again helped us to carry on with positive energy. As in any relationship, we forgave each other the past mistakes and decided to go further together, adopting a stronger communication and aiming forwards.

It took me time but I finally got to know the people I was working with and to understand what problem we were facing. The link within the team was really strong, and I was happy to realise that we were sharing a very similar point of view on the question and on the project â&#x20AC;&#x201C; whatever we were doing, the locals had to be included. From there we provided a really productive work during the kick-off week. We were well prepared and organised when we left Finhaut and we had the basis for the continuation of a prolific team work. However, once apart it was more difficult to meet and our communication was at first quite problematic. We could not agree on a time to meet, would turn up late at most of the meeting time and the work we were providing became really individual. After a fairly chaotic second review, we decided to be more accurate on our meeting time and more organised. We included Agenda Points and Minutes for each meeting and had precise tasks to accomplished

White Border Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Issue 001

Beautiful.

Finhaut 2050. Modeled by changes

Alessandro Betta I didn’t really know what to expect when I enrolled for ELOP project. I was attracted both by the topic of the workshop and by the groupwork expected from us. I admit that I arrived in Finhaut expecting a more “academic” working process; multidisciplinary but still inside defined tracks. All those expectations fortunately revealed themselves as not true. I will never know what was behind the process of forming the groups, but I immediately had the feeling of being in an “outsiders” group. I really appreciated the way we approached elopathlon and the initial phases of working. I felt very lucky to have the possibility to explore different ways of working on projects rather than the “classical” designing approach that sees buildings as an answer for problems. It’s hard to express with few words my feelings for the week, so I’m taking with myself a box of little moments that made me really feel part of a “family” [which of course is something more than just a workgroup]. I have to admit that I found really difficult to work without having contacts with people. It is even more difficult when you try to make a project which is not simply putting together disciplines but merging them in a common result. That is the case of our group, I think we really needed a more intensive physical experience, rather than a very dispersive online communication strategy. In the beginning, as usual when in a group democracy tends to anarchy [because if you want to be transdisciplinary you need not to have proper leaders], we struggled a lot to find a common goal. Even finding a common meeting

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time seemed impossible. The first review reinforced our sensation of being the “outsiders” of this ELOP year project. It was not a good review, but it helped us a lot to reinforce our concepts and to express them in a clearer way. Also due to “homeland” problems this was the worst period for me. Even if the project was going on and I was really liking the fact that finally I was not doing architecture, it was hard to accept. It seemed to me the project was going nowhere and, as I was not seeing concrete outputs, I started to be really worried and pessimistic about the results. This was also due to the fact that I tend to be a perfectionist in my work and I’m not really able to delegate duties to other people. I was tempted to leave everything. Final presentation. As already said I think our group really needed a more intensive experience as we really need to work together to recreate the sort of “creative alchemy” we want to produce. I barely felt tired; things were coming out quite naturally. Of course it was very hard for me being the “only” designer in the group and sometimes I had this feeling of people not working, even if it was a wrong perception due to different approaches to the work. Talking about the final result I have to say that I really loved the fact that our group just followed the idea against all opposite forces and the fact that we were totally out from every conditioning. Talking about the group atmosphere I can just say that I was really amazed by the atmosphere we created in such few time; it was like we knew each other for ages. Hopefully we’ll meet again in the future, maybe to organize a festival!

FestiValais special issue

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere â&#x20AC;&#x201C; on water and land. Walt Whitman

20.01.2015