Designing experimental places and spaces #2
A bioregional experience journey from the Mediterranean basin of the Venice Lagoon up the Po River to its headwaters, crossing the Alpine ridge to follow the Rhone river down to its delta reconnecting with the Mediterranean
Dates and places
The in-person course will take place from October 31 to November 7, 2025.
A virtual theory and preparatory meeting about two weeks before (date to be announced)
31 Oct, Fri
arrival by train in Venice at noon. Overnight in Venice
1 Nov, Sat
visit to Experience Lab/Camping Ca’Savio (DEPS lab 1), Venice Lagoon (day excursion)
2 Nov, Sun
Morning departure and late noon arrival by train via Turin in Pinerolo, car pick-up to Ostana, Italy
2-4 Nov, Sun-Wed
MonViso Institute (DEPS lab 2) (three nights)
5 Nov, Wed
Morning departure and late noon arrival by train in Annecy, France (DEPS lab 3)
6 Nov, Thu
Afternoon departure and arrival by train in Arles at early evening, France
7 Nov, Fri
Visiting Arles, LUMA Arles (DEPS lab 4) and getting a tour in Atelier LUMA
8 Nov, Sat
Wrap up, course finishes in Arles by noon, departure via Marseille
Optional Extension to Lumia Labs (DEPS lab 5), on request
8-10 Nov, Sat-Mon
Train to Mouans-Sartoux, France, visiting and experiencing a leading Lab on regeneration near Cannes
Co-create a better reality: prototype your own lab type through decades of experience
If I had to summarize it: prototyping isn’t pre-development. It’s the real thing — held lightly enough to let learning happen.
Tobias Luthe
How to design experimental places and spaces? What differentiates the various formats, i.e. living labs, real-world labs, bioregional learning centers or weaving labs, eco-villages, living systems labs, and others? What are design criteria? How to finance, launch, and manage a real-world lab, bioregional learning/weaving center, or any such category? What can we learn from practice, and what mistakes can we avoid? What are business models, ways of community integration, types of experimental research and design activities? How does such engagement affect one’s lifestyle, personal and professional development?
In this journey, we'll visit four very different lab types and engage with the founders/hosts/managers/communities in personal dialogues to learn about creating one’s own potential lab space, while diving deep into the cutting-edge science behind these experiential places, and the implications for the specific context each interested creator is bringing..
Learning journey: firsthand experience backed by systems science
This course will equip you with highly valuable firsthand experience from embodied practice on designing and maintaining experimental places and spaces. You will learn about the latest state of science on transdisciplinary research, systemic intervention, systemic design, transitions and transformations, and bioregional learning/weaving, and reflect on what roles experimental places and spaces take.
We will deep-dive into practice, and benefit from more than 10 years of building the MonViso Institute and its system—with firsthand sharing of gain and pain. Architecture, landscaping, community integration, bioregional weaving, cross-scale governance, resilience building, course development, lifestyle changes, financing, business opportunities… anything will be openly shared.
We will learn about a set of diverse approaches and experiences, like the VR lab in the Experience Lab sprouting from within the large campsite Ca’Savio, and various bioregional activities emerging around it, like the first DRRS Bioregional Sensing unconference and the Systemic Cycles tour by bike and sea kayak.
Unique program: holistic and project-based learning
The program is a hybrid of coaching and learning. Each participant is invited to bring their own specific quest or project, creating a foundation for highly applicable, project-based learning. Deep theoretical and practical insights unfold through a learning structure built on a matrix of four verticals and four horizontals, supported by embodied, experience-based practices. These elements are woven together to provide a holistic and lasting understanding.
Following a systemic approach—one that embraces the entangled, interwoven, and complex nature of systems—we explore each vertical through a unique lens: business, governance, and art & culture, and the inner self. At the heart of the program lies the MVI, which synthesizes these three domains to offer insights into how to build an ever-evolving, living systems lab.
This journey takes us deep into the fabric of design, examining the practical implications of new ways of learning and co-creating. Alongside the verticals, our horizontal threads include:
– an ongoing dialogic, systemic, visual mapping process,
– the study of bioregional designthinking (based on a systemic governance framework across eight scales),
– lectures and practices in systems thinking, and
– continuous sharing, and reflection and mentoring to support each participant’s individual project.
Visits: embodied experience in four different places and spaces
You will visit four experimental place types and engage in deep dialogue with the local hosts and place-familiar guides. The group will travel by train on an Interrail ticket to Venice and meet local host Folef Hooft Graafland there, then travel from Venice to Ostana and meet the MVI team around Tobias Luthe. You’ll then travel to Annecy to meet Benjamin Marias, who then guides you to Arles and the Luma Center.
Start: Re-designing economic prospects
31.07. – 02.11 (2 nights): Experience Lab in the Venice Lagoon
Hospitality is like an octopus, it has tentacles to all parts of the bioregion, thats why its a powerful tool to start bioregional design with.
Folef Hoof Graafland
After arriving in Venice around noon, we will begin our journey with a visit to the Architecture Biennale—setting the tone with cultural inspiration that will accompany us throughout the course. This opening invites reflection on what is possible and necessary to align culture and nature, city and bioregion, ecology and economy.
On Saturday, we head into the biodiversity-rich Venice Lagoon to visit Camping Ca’Savio, a campsite that hosts the Experience Lab—an experimental space exploring new models of business and rethinking hospitality through multimedia and dialogue. Folef, Director of the Lab, and Maurizio Vianello, the owner, will guide us through their journey, sharing insights and lessons that will frame our own exploration. We then venture into the lagoon before returning to Venice for a shared dinner to launch the learning journey.
Deep Dive: Life Lessons from a Living Systems Lab
03.11. – 05.11. (3 nights): MonViso Institute, Upper Po Valley
You need places where contradictions can breathe. Where friction is not treated as a problem to be solved, but as an essential condition for transformation.
Tobias Luthe
After a scenic train ride through northern Italy from the sea up the Po River basin, with guided conversations, we’ll arrive by late noon at MVI with time to explore the mountain campus at 1500m asl near the spring of the Po River.
The next two full days will allow us to deep dive into ten years of experience in building an experimental place, full of hands-on practice, with life-changing personal impacts, creating a micro-economy that supports a team, and the co-offering of a global teaching program together with ETH Zurich. We will explore evidence for systemic interventions across governance scales, discuss the latest science on designing experiential and experimental places, and learn from the gains and pains of engaging in such an endeavor.
Embodied practices like hiking with a “view-from-above” mountain perspective to understand the valley and bioregional context at the source of the Po River will be included, along with talks with the local community and small group sessions on governance and design frameworks. We'll gather around the fire and engage in physical activity-based dialogues outdoors, exchanging narratives of embodied practices and what this could mean for your plans of place-specific experimentation.
Liminary: Re-Thinking urban governance
05.11. – 06.11. (1 night): Annecy
For me, that’s transformation — when people shift from being users to stewards.
Benjamin Marias
In Annecy, Vice Mayor Benjamin Marias will host us for an immersive exploration of the city’s multi-level governance. Together, we will walk and cycle through the city and along the lake, visiting local initiatives and engaging directly with their initiators. Along the way, Benjamin will share insights from city, community, and regional perspectives, with a particular focus on policy-making as a lever for transformation.
In a hands-on workshop with invited guests, we will co-create responses to one of Annecy’s current real-world challenges—getting our hands dirty while being introduced to and applying the Annecy methodology.
Closing: Cultivating art and heritage
06.11. – 08.11. (2 nights): Arles
Beauty is not decoration. It’s a Trojan horse. It creates attention. It allows us to move the discussion deeper, especially with people who might resist or doubt. The conversation piece lets us stay soft while going deep.
Jan Boelen
In Arles, we’ll visit the Bioregional Learning Center of the renowned Luma Foundation, with a special focus on the bioregional design work of Atelier LUMA. There, we’ll explore how art, materials research, and local biofactories are used to transform cultural heritage into opportunities for regenerative futures.
Inside the Atelier, we’ll experience a variety of prototypes and hear the story of their evolution from creative director Jan Boelen, who has guided the initiative from its inception. The journey concludes with an inspirational dinner, offering space to reflect and celebrate. Departure follows on Saturday after a final wrap-up at the hotel.
Liminal space: The journey is framed by a tailored integration program that weaves together reflection, dialogue, and co-creation. Through firsthand experiences, exchanges with founders, owners, and managers, participants will capture, digest, and deepen their understanding of the insights each place and person has to offer.
Meet DEPS team, MVI Design Associates:
From the left:
Benjamin Marias, Vice-mayor of Annecy, DEPS Guide
Tobias Luthe, MVI Founding Director, ETH DRRS Program Director, Systemic Cycles Co-founder
Sylwia Orczykowska, ETH DRRS Communication and Art Designer, Founder of Art Now
Folef Hooft Graafland, Local Host, Camping Ca'Savio / Experience Lab, Venice Lagoon, DRRS Alumni
Florian Uthoff-Erfort, DEPS Accompanying Guide, DRRS Alumni
Martin Schütz, Engineering Design lecturer ETH and Zurich Art School, Systemic Cycles Co-founder
For whom?
As part of a dedicated group of engaged entrepreneurs, designers, researchers and handpicked professionals, you’ll meet the makers and doers behind four experimental places – and gain access to a vibrant global network of the DRRS program, committed to healthier ways of living and working, while contributing to some of society’s most pressing challenges.
Spanning backgrounds in academia, NGOs, startups, and public institutions, participants bring a rich tapestry of insights that deepen the embodied learning on site. This diversity not only enriches the experience but also helps expand your personal network and broaden your understanding of systemic transformation in practice.
DRRS elective?
Yes, counting for 2 ECTS if pre-conditioned MOOC#1 has been finished and if accompanied by a written-graphical report with a potential selection as a DRRS blog publication, plus your personal learning reflection, to be submitted after the course.
Preconditions
ETH DRRS MOOC#1. Ideally also MOOC#2, at least having read this article:
Living Systems Labs by T. Luthe
Proof of accident insurance.
Pricing
Regular course price - 1750€
DRRS CAS alumni price - 1450€
Bike and kayak rental, and taxi pickup are included in the price.
Financial support may be available on a case-by-case basis (upon request).
Additional costs:
• Interrail train ticket: 383€ (valid 7 out of 30 days across Europe)
• food half-pension (breakfast and dinner) and accommodation single room: 900€
• lunches, snacks and alcoholic drinks: various price, dependent on individual choices
Application to participate
Please apply by 15 Sept 2025 using this form with:
– a short statement of motivation,
– a brief resume of your education and work experience,
– your age,
– proof of MOOC#1 participation for the DRRS alumni conditions,
– your expectations.
Do you have questions? Please email to apply@monviso-institute.org.
Download the course teaser: here