Designing Transformative Processes in Mountain Realms

Abstract

Alpine territories are experiencing a period of new dynamism in which relations with the urban environment play an important role in terms of cultural redesign of values, physical and functional connections with local areas and the creation of rurban-mountain networks. This contribution aims to highlight the challenge to trigger a long-term territorial strategy for the Valtellina area – in the Italian Alps – from short-term actions and processes to lead local heritage and cultural production and make stakeholders part of this collective visioning and design practices. Actually, this article illustrates the approaches and methodologies applied to two research and educational projects – involving international students from the School of Design of Politecnico di Milano and the Alta Scuola Programme of Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Torino – which resulted in design actions on the territory in terms of temporary experiments for Mega Events and urban regeneration possibilities in Valtellina Area.