Description
How does climate change affect high-alpine landscapes and buildings? And what can we learn from it? "Laboratory of Extremes: Climate – Alps – Architecture" explores these processes and develops future perspectives for building in the mountains. The book includes contributions on landscape change, climate sensitivity, and mountain hut architecture, as well as ideas and projects from design studios at ETH Zurich and Bern University of Applied Sciences. It also documents and reflects on current competitions for mountain huts organized by the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) and the transformation strategies that carry the SAC's architectural heritage into the future. The insights gained from the high-alpine environment are transferred to the laboratory of everyday life—our rural and urban settlements—and developed into practical strategies and typologies: climate-friendly, site-specific, adaptable, resource-efficient, water-saving, circular, and interconnected.
A look at the neighbouring Alpine region, together with discussions on sustainable visions of the future in the context of the Alps, climate and architecture, opens up further perspectives. Labor der Extreme: Klima – Alpen – Architektur is a book about mountains, landscapes and huts, about urban landscapes and people, about change and potential. Editor Hanspeter Bürgi is an architect, university professor and President of the SAC Hut Commission. The publication is produced in collaboration with Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH, the Swiss Alpine Club SAC, ETH Zurich / Case Studio Vogt and Arcollage. A photo essay by renowned mountain photographer Marco Volken complements this carefully designed publication.
