About MonViso Institute
The MonViso Institute is a place and state of mind as an evolving open innovation ecosystem - a real-world laboratory for research, education, entrepreneurship and new living - on sustainability transitions and regenerative design for a more resilient and just society.
MVI is registered as a non-profit association under Italian law in Torino with the aim to develop and manage the Institute and the Campus. The Campus is owned privately.
Vision and mission
Our vision is being lived in real time: while the MVI is evolving as Institute - state of mind independent from place – it is as well evolving as place, a mountain campus, where the state of mind is lived and experienced in real.
MVI’s mission is to re-think and re-design how we want to live now and in the future. Resilient, regenerative, blending local traditions, regional resources, and global openness.
We believe that design is at a pivotal movement to confront complex challenges of global scale with place-based inclusive responses at the intersection of science, creativity, and systemic innovation.
Goals
The evolving MVI is a pathway of experimentation in the real world, guided by a set of goals:
- Experimenting with resilient community models of individual freedom, collective support, and new alpine-urban lifestyles
- Shaping bio-regional supply chains and circular economies that are socially, economically and ecologically regenerative
- Designing buildings that perform like forests - renewable materials, circular in energy and water, healthy indoor climate, and beautiful
- Anticipating crises as triggers of shaping new opportunities for personal and collective growth and resilience
- Building capacity through academic teaching, professional training, and mutual exchange on experiential seeds for systemic innovation
- Incubating entrepreneurial sustainability by balancing local identity and international inspiration
- Engaging beyond mental and physical comfort zones, through philosophical discourse, intercultural curiosity, and outdoor sports action
- Enjoying the journey as Scientists, Designers, Social Engineers, Players in the Outdoors, and Friends thriving for Happiness
Our logo
Explanation of the logo - symbol and text combination
The Institute´s character is kind of a more settled, research and education laboratory, while interlayering with fresh entrepreneurial and creative living experiments. The MonViso name and the Institute term provide for international recognition and concept guidance.
Diamond shape - relates to the stone roof tiles, „lose“ in Italian. Squared lose are integral part of the Occitan building tradition and code in Ostana; every roof must use them. At MVI, we introduce a photovoltaic lose, mimicing lose with similar shape/size/roof pattern and in grey color, to receive permission and change the building codes: tradition carefully interpreted to respond to todayʼs necessity for building carbon-negative buildings.
Monte Viso -3842m asl high landmark and cultural icon of the region, visible from Torino and even Milano, from Cinque Terre at the Mediterranean sea, and marking the border to France. The Po river originates from here. Monviso, my Viso, as the locals call „Il Re di Pietra“, the king of stone. Monte Viso is said to be one of the inspirations for the Paramount logo, and was featured in the literature, e.g. in Danteʼs Inferno.
The buildings indicate the architectural component of the Institute, and the balance and trade between „preserving traditions“ and „careful systemic innovation“. In total six buildings, the symbol shows two dinstinctly different houses: The original, small, box stone house with no roof overhang and few small windows, and the modern interpretation in the „Doppio“, the passive net-positive building which we re-built from an old ruin. The Doppio combines traditional elements (some stone walls, lose on the N roof) with modern elements of passive energy design (large three-pane windows, PV lose on the S roof, larch wood facade, overall higher ceilings). Both types of buidlings will co-exist on the campus.
Serre Lamboi is the traditional name for the place of the MonViso Institute (MVI). It means „terrace/grove of the Laburnum tree“, engl. Golden Rain/Chain (Laburnum alpinum), a yellowish flowering tree with very dark and dense heartwood, substitute to ebony or rosewood. Since local people mention the name Monviso being overused, and quickly sounding „cheap“ in their ears, we add the place name „Serre Lamboi“ as the localized wording for the Institute, gaining acceptance and support, merging local traditions and understanding.
