Designing experimental places and spaces
Dates
10-17 May 2025
Plus a virtual theory and preparatory meeting about two weeks before
10 May, Saturday, arrival by train in Venice at noon. 10./11.5. at Experience Lab/Camping Ca’Savio near Venice (two nights).
12 May, morning departure and late noon arrival by train via Turin in Pinerolo, car pick-up to Ostana. 12.-14.5. at MonViso Institute (three nights)
15 May, morning departure and late noon arrival by train in Annecy. Tour of municipal projects and a bike/boat “zoom out” practice discussion with the vice mayor (one night)
16 May, morning departure and late noon arrival by train in Arles. Tour of the Luma Bioregional learning center.
17 May, Systemic Cycles ride downstream the Rhone into the Camarque. Course finish in Arles with dinner. Departure on the 18th in the morning via Marseilles (two nights).
Places
Experience Lab/Camping Ca’Savio, Venice lagoon, Italy
MonViso Institute campus and High Po River Valley bioregion, Serre Lamboi, Ostana, Valle Po, Italy
Annecy, municipality and greater regional cross-scale governance, France
Arles, Luma foundation center, France
Content
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, the personal and professional development?
We'll visit four such 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.
What you learn
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 place and spaces take.
We will deep-dive into practice, and benefit from 10 years of building the MonViso Institute and its system with first hand sharing of gain and pain. Architecture, landscaping, community integration, bioregional weaving, cross-scale governance, resilience building, courses 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, Systemic Cycles tour by bike and sea kayak.
Structure
You will visit four experimental place types and deep-dialogue with the local hosts and deeply 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. You travel to Annecy and meet Benjamin Marias, who also guides you to Arles and the Luma center there.
At Ca’Savio, you will walk the campsite stepping stones system, experience the multimedia and dialogue in the Experience lab, bicycle the area to then explore by kayak the lagoon.
At MVI, we will explore the MVI campus, map details of the management plan and ten years of systemic interventions, hike the community and take a “view from above” mountain hike to gain the valley, landscape and bioregional perspective at the source of the Po river. We will exchange around the fire and spend physical activity time for embodied dialogues outside.
In Annecy, vice mayor Benjamin will walk and cycle the city and the adjacent lake, to share mutli-governance experiences from a city, community, and political-regional perspective, with a special focus on policy making.
In Arles, you will get a tour of the Bioregional Learning Center of the Luma Foundation, and then bicycle in a Systemic Cycles style down the Rhone river into the bioregional activities of the Camarque.
There is plenty of opportunity to gain first hand experiences of the places, exchange with the founders, owners or managers, and develop a deep sense of the many learnings the places and people have to offer.
For whom?
For anyone wanting to engage in their own experimental design project for a place or space. We can say from today’s experience that what this course shares is fundamental knowledge of highest value that spans from the latest state of science and theory, to deep embodied practices in multiple facets, to integration in communities of practice and their global networks, to then support you in self-reflection of your own endeavour.
DRRS elective?
Yes, counting for 2 ECTS 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
MOOC#1. Ideally also MOOC#2, at least having read this article: https://medium.com/@tobiasluthe/living-systems-labs-049e2b20d25a
Proof of accident insurance.
Costs
1850€ with half-pension. DRRS CAS alumni, students and those in need are eligible for a substituted course fee.
The Interrail ticket 7 out of 30 days for 383€ needs to be bought in addition. It covers your travel to Venice and back home from Marseille.
Accommodation and food
Shared bungalow (Casavio), personal glamping tent or shared hostel room (Ostana), shared double rooms (Annecy and Arles) included. Private room for additional costs. Breakfast and dinner included. Lunches, snacks and alcoholic drinks are at own cost.
Travel
Interrail by train to Venice, then to Ostana, to Annecy, to Arles, and return via Marseille. Included are local transports by boat from Venice to Ca’Savio, and by group taxi from Pinerolo to and from Ostana.
Application to participate
Please apply to participate in this course by 1 April 2025 on this form.