Alpine Circularity: Regenerating Mountain Communities through Systems-Oriented Design

Fitzpatrick, Haley

PhD-fellow

Haley Fitzpatrick is a PhD Fellow at AHO exploring how Systems-Oriented Design can be used to link trans-disciplinary epistemology with community-based, place-specific knowledge to co-create regenerative and resilient alpine landscapes. She is particularly interested in the (in)visible interactions of systems, flows and processes across scales of the built environment and how these both characterize and challenge notions of place and collective identity.

Before starting her research at AHO, Haley worked for four years at Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Genova, Italy, where she gained experience from concept design to construction administration across a variety of projects including art museums, large-scale masterplans, residential and educational institutes. She has also been serving as a Design Associate at the MonViso Institute in the Piedemonte Alps of Italy, where she is actively engaged in research and education, especially in mobilizing the co-production of alpine knowledge across diverse communities.

She received her Master of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin with a certificate in Sustainable Design. Her graduate research focused on the relationships between identity, tourism and the environment in Iceland. Above all, Haley is passionate about exploring creative ways to use design as a collaborative and healing opportunity to help reimagine more equitable living within our common planet.

Sevaldson, Birger

Professor

Birger Sevaldson [dipl NCAD MNIL PhD] is professor at the Institute of Design at AHO – Oslo School of Architecture and Design and a principle researcher in OCEAN design research association.

He is an academic and designer working in a broad field of design and architecture. He has been in private practice since 1986. His practice spans from architecture, interior to furniture and product design including design of lighting armatures and boat design. It also includes experimental architecture and several art installations in collaboration with the composer Natasha Barrett on the context of OCEAN.

Birger Sevaldson has been developing concepts in design computing and his doctoral thesis from 2005 is based on 15 years of research into this field. He has been collaborating in OCEAN design research association since 1997 and the experimental design projects resulting from this collaboration have been published worldwide. The research into digital design developed into a wider interest in the design process and especially design processes for uncertainty, unforeseen futures and complexity. This research grew out of the digital research which initially engaged in time related design, where time was explored as a design material. Later this approach was further developed and new concepts for systems thinking in design emerged. He has defined Systems Oriented Design as a designerly way of systems thinking and systems practice.

Birger has been lecturing and teaching in Norway, Europe, Asia and USA and has held a visiting professorship at NACD in Oslo and has been a visiting critic at Syracuse University School of Architecture, USA. He is currently visiting professor at the University College of Ålesund, Norway. He was collaborating in the start-up of the academic design journal FORMakademisk and is in the editorial board of the journal. He has been in a number of international evaluation committees amongst them the evaluation committee for Danish design research under the Ministry of Culture of Denmark, and the evaluation committee for a science master for the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC), Ireland, and the evaluation committee for the EID project by the Swedish energy authorities. Birger is member of the council of the Design Research Society.

Birger has held several positions amongst them, leader of the National Council for Design Educations in Norway, Vice Rector of Oslo School of Architecture and Design and director of OCEAN Design Research Association and the committee for NORDES 2011. He is currently the curator of the Gallery AHO.

Luthe, Tobias

Associate professor

Tobias Luthe (PhD) is an academic transdisciplinary hybrid, merging sustainability science (natural/social science interface) with forest/environmental/wood engineering, landscape planning, holistic architecture, service and industrial bio design, and sustainability economics.
Tobias currently works as professor for sustainability science and regenerative design, associated at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, ETH Zurich, the University of Freiburg, and visiting at Politechnico Torino.

He is specifically interested in nature-based design and governance innovation for resilient regenerative systems across multiple types and scales, and how to integrate science, design and practice in transdisciplinarity. His current research focuses on four interrelated themes:

1. resilience of complex social-ecological systems (SES) to global environmental change, i.e. alpine-urban and Arctic environments;

2. societal sustainability transitions and systemic innovation;

3. regenerative systems design, i.e. bio-inspired, nature-based solutions with circularities in the economy and multiple scales of SES, spanning from raw materials to products and buildings to land use and bio-regional economies;

4. real-world laboratory communication, experiential learning and behavioral change for sustainability.

With his company Grown (www.grown.ch), an outdoor creativity lab, he eco-designed skis from hemp fiber composites, awarded with industry-leading eco design prices. He is co-founding director of the MonViso Institute (MVI) (www.monviso-institute.org), a real-world mountain laboratory for sustainability transitions and systemic regenerative design, located in the Italian Piedmont mountains. Here he is creator and builder of a passive net-positive building, an educational illustration of circular design. Tobias is a mountaineering guide, offering unique human-nature experiences at the interlink of science, nature-inspired creativity, and mental-physical experiences beyond the comfort zone.