Certifcate of Advance Studies (CAS) Beyond Systems Thinking,
Place-specific to the Italian Upper Po River Valley bioregion.

Apply with your personal QUEST in relation with Living Systems, 
Cultural Transformation, Bioregional Economies,  Meta-Awareness. 
Hosted by MonViso Institute, Ostana, Valle Po.

The The MonViso Institute, in collaboration with ETH Zurich, is pleased to announce an executive study program scholarship, including a place-specific research project — the QUEST — on cultural transformation in relation to bioregional economies and living systems meta-awareness, open to candidates from and around the Piemonte bioregion. This initiative is generously sponsored by the Swiss Avina Foundation. The MVI scholarship for the MAS ETH in Regenerative Systems supports a Piemonte- based QUEST on cultural transformation, bioregional economies & living systems meta-awareness, supervised by the MonViso Institute, located in the High Po River Valley, Ostana community. 

ETH Zurich SDLs detailed program information and the online application form link:
https://systemicdesignlabs.ethz.ch/cas-eth-beyond-systems-thinking/

Download and read the entire scholarschip announcement: here.

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Borsa di studio per frequentare il MAS ETH in Sistemi Rigenerativi:
Certificato di Studi Avanzati (CAS) Oltre il Pensiero Sistemico
Specifico per la bioregione italiana dell’Alta Valle Po

Candidati con la tua QUEST personale relativa a Sistemi Viventi,
Trasformazione Culturale, Economie Bioregionali, Meta-Consapevolezza. 
Ospitato dal MonViso Institute, Ostana, Valle Po.

Il MonViso Institute, in collaborazione con ETH Zurich, è lieto di annunciare una borsa di studio per un programma executive di formazione, che include un progetto di ricerca fortemente legato al territorio — la QUEST — sulla trasformazione culturale legate alle economie bioregionali e alla meta-consapevolezza dei sistemi viventi, aperto a candidati provenienti dalla bioregione del Piemonte e aree limitrofe. Questa iniziativa è generosamente sponsorizzata dalla svizzera Avina Foundation. La borsa MVI per il MAS ETH in Regenerative Systems finanzia una QUEST basata in Piemonte sulla trasformazione culturale, le economie bioregionali e la meta-consapevolezza dei sistemi viventi, supervisionato dal MonViso Institute, situato nella comunità
di Ostana, nell’Alta Valle Po.

Informazioni dettagliate sul programma ETH Zurich SDL e link al modulo di candidatura online: https://systemicdesignlabs.ethz.ch/cas-eth-beyond-systems-thinking/

Scarica e leggi l’intero bando di concorso: qui.

High Traverse – Alta Valle Po to Mercantour

7-15 March 2026, Cottian Alps

This is a moving gathering of adventurous minds engaged in holistic resilience building and regenerative futures.

Tour description

Over the course of a demanding, high-alpine ski traverse, we cross the Cottian Alps from the Po Valley, circling the striking, pyramid-shaped Monte Viso, and continue westward to the Stura Valley, where the Ligurian Alps and the Maritime Alps begin. We travel hut to hut along snow-rich ridgelines and the Franco-Italian border crest, with one night spent in and around a high-altitude bivouac.

Each day takes us through wild, remote terrain along the French–Italian border, ascending and traversing between roughly 1,800 and 3,200 meters. The journey begins in Ostana, in the Po Valley, at the Monviso Institute.

The total distance is about 67km, and the summed-up vertical is around 6600m.

The Unconference format

At the start in Ostana, and as a daily routine, we consciously interweave stimulating topics from place-specific knowledge, to cultural narratives of the Occitan region, to living systems labs as holistic types of experimental places and spaces, on holistic resilience building in an urban-alpine (rural) context, and provide a flexible framing of scale-linking, fractal design, where eight (spatial) scales of governance meet six types of circular flows. Such framing may serve as seeds for various dialogues amongst this carefully curated group of mountaineers with their rich knowledge base and work schemes.

View the tour page for more information and application.

A virtual in-depth journey

3 March – 14 April 2026

Comprising 10 DEPS founders and curator’s narrated experiences in 13 virtual evening sessions of 90 minutes each, on Zoom; Tuesdays and Wednesdays 8-9.30pm CET (Ostana/Zurich) time.

This course explores how to envision, plan, design, develop, build, govern, hold and sustain experimental places and spaces.

We will examine what differentiates the many existing formats—living labs, real-world labs, bioregional learning or weaving centers, eco-villages, living systems labs, and others – and support in identifying a best-fit for the individual course participant’s visions, imaginations, questions, and plans to experiment in a direction of resilience and regeneration for a more livable personal and societal future.

Application window: until 28 Feb 2026  

DEPS course flyer: download pdf here.

Visit the DEPS page for more detailed information and the application form 

Get ready for the enriching DRRS (Designing Resilient Regenerative Systems) program year to come! Powered by MVI (MonViso Institute) in collaboration with ETH Zurich.

The Cyclical Logic of the DRRS Program

The DRRS program is designed as a cyclical learning ecosystem, not a linear curriculum. Its structure combines concentric depth with seasonal rhythm, allowing participants to enter, deepen, pause, and re-enter in ways aligned with personal readiness and ecological time. Learning unfolds through recurring thresholds rather than fixed progression, supporting long-term engagement with complexity.

At the outer layer, MOOCs and the virtual DRRS community provide continuous, low-threshold access and a shared language. Around this spine, a constellation of accessible practices—art-based exploration (Web of Life), mindfulness and inner development formats, short Systemic Cycles tours, co-working days, and community gatherings—invite relational and embodied learning without requiring long commitments. These formats create multiple moments of entry across the year.

Depth emerges through calendar-sequenced intensification. As the year progresses, participants may move into more immersive formats such as Designing Experimental Places & Spaces (DEPS) in spring, Systemic Cycles journeys, a mindful self-compassion nature retreat in summer, craft-based tool-building, and a post-RSD systemic design retreat in autumn. Each format revisits core questions from a different angle, increasing responsibility, embodiment, and integration.

The entire system is aligned with solstices, equinoxes, and micro-seasons, using seasonality as a didactic device to cultivate timing, regeneration, and appropriate intensity. In essence, DRRS functions as a living system of learning—open yet structured, rhythmic rather than linear—supporting the capacity to navigate complexity by synchronizing intellectual inquiry, embodied practice, and ecological time.

Zoom recording of the virtual info meeting Friday, 16 Jan 2026: https://ethz.zoom.us/rec/share/mUkHRTxfkGig6OIj3DjgOylY-G3wD705QXJ-Xej6tE-BdCydOZNw5H9Xsi86W_qn.QYNKaInarcj2rdG4

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Miro board for visual guidance: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVGQRoetw=/?share_link_id=467189544815

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Summary of the session transcript, explaining the cyclical logic of the program setup: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1chZR-JedZdALFslYyCDyvoak1TjRYpkRVp-UP0UY3mw/edit?usp=sharing

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• 19 Jan 2026
Web of Life ⁰² – exploring other-than-human perspectives in support of interspecies care and life-centric cultural development (virtual)
Read more on the Art Now website: here

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• 3 Mar – 14 April 2026
Designing Experimental Places and Spaces (DEPS) (virtual)
Read more

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• 7-15 Mar 2026 High Ski Traverse as Unconference in Motion (ski alpinism tour) Read more

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Spring equinox – 20 March

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• 20-23 April, 2026
Systemic Cycles tour – Po River, Italy (physical)

• 24-25 Apr 2026
Systemic Cycle tour – Annecy, France (physical)

Read more

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• 1 May- 30 Sep 2026
CAS 2 ETH Beyond Systems Thinking (hybrid: physical and virtual)
Read more
MAS ETH in Regenerative Systems – thesis module (hybrid: physical and virtual)

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• 2-6 (7) May 2026
MVI co-working days (physical) Meet the MVI team, explore our mountain campus, train your physical work skills, and help preparing the land for the season with various types of physical campus work (trees planting, pond building, fence repairing, trail building, pond building, permaculture garden preperation, …), and sleep in the newly built “Essenza Lamboi Camps”. Ostana, Italy
Read more

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• 6-8 May 2026
Systemic Cycles guide training – level I (physical)
Venice Lagoon bioregion, Italy
Read more

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• 8-10 May 2026
Bioregional Sensing & DRRS Community Gathering (physical)
Venice Lagoon bioregion, ExpoLAB, Italy

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• 28-31 May 2026
Systemic Cycles tour – Ticino (physical)

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•  4-9 June 2026
CAS 2 ETH Beyond Systems Thinking field design trip* light – Norway (physical)
•  10-15 June 2026
Field design trip intense – Norway (physical)

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Summer solstice – June 21

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•  20-23 June 2026
MAS field design trip with QUEST pitching at ETH Zurich (physical)
including: 20-21 June 2026 Bioregional Sensing & DRRS Community Gathering (physical)

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•  10-12 July 2026
Systemic Cycles guide training – level II (physical)
Basel – Jura – Biel – Bern

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•  22-23 July 2026
ETH Short Course “Regeneration and (Artificial) Complexity” – (physical), in German
Zurich

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•  20-25 July 2026
Encounters Beyond Human – an Elemental, Place-Based Journey (physical)
A 6-Day Mindfulness & Inner Development Retreat in the Piemontese Alps
Read more

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•  21/28 July (virtual) and 4-8 Aug 2026 (physical) / 2nd date 24-29 Aug 2026
Forming Relationships — Building One’s Own Tool as a Holistic Practice (hybrid: physical and virtual) Knife and spoon building course alongside regenerative design principles and place-specific ontology of tools
Read more

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• tbd. August 2026
Systemic Cycles tour – South Tyrol (physical)

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Autumn equinox – 22 Sept

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•  24-25 Sept 2026
ETH Short Course “Systemic Design”* – (physical), in German and English
Zurich

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•  30 Sept – 3 Oct 2026
Systemic Cycles guide training – level III (physical)
Piemont to Liguria (Ostana – Cuneo – Finale)

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•  1 Oct 2026 – 31 Jan 2027
CAS 3 ETH Systemic Design (hybrid: physical and virtual)
Read more

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•  18-21 Oct 2026
Systemic Design for Regenerative Practice (physical)
Post-RSD 15 retreat in Ostana, MVI Campus
Read more

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•  24-27 Oct 2026
CAS 3 ETH Systemic Design field design trip light – Mallorca (physical)
•  28 Oct – 1 Nov 2026
Field design trip intense – Mallorca (physical)

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Winter solstice – 21 Dec

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We are delighted to invite you to a transformative journey of creating a positive impact in complex systems through the next module of the full Master of Advanced Studies ETH in Regenerative Systems: CAS 2 Beyond Systems Thinking.

The entire MAS executive programme offers a learning-to-unlearn-to-relearn journey with your individual transformative design project, the QUEST, on how to navigate complexity for designing resilient regenerative systems. We deep-dive into regeneration on various systems types and nested governance scales; we embrace worldviews and learn to design as nature; we flourish mind through movement and practice circular design for resilience building in living systems labs. We provide reflected access to quantitative methods and to understanding their relational value with qualitative methods, designerly iteration, AI, embodied practice, and inner development.

Living systems, non-linearity, emergence, interbeing – the upcoming second CAS module “Beyond systems thinking” deep-dives into complexity and develops a critical understanding of systems. You will learn what systems thinking entails, and how it can become a helpful habit. The program’s field design trip to Norway will take you to exciting real-world practices in Nordic culture and the midnight sun. Through physical embodiment, you will connect with place, with community and your inner self.

CAS 2 application window: 15 Dec 2025 – 15 Mar 2026  
CAS 2 course dates: 1 May 2026 – 30 Sep 2026

Field design trip to Norway:
•  4-8 June 2026
CAS 2 ETH Beyond Systems Thinking field design trip – light version
•  9-14 June 2026
MAS ETH field design trip – intense version

Precondition: MOOC#1 Worldviews: From Sustainability to Regeneration and MOOC#2 Beyond Systems Thinking have to be taken or at least advanced as a precondition to this CAS. 

ETH CAS 2 Beyond Systems Thinking application link: here

This eight days tour has been done in November ’25 – a detailed report will be published soon. A follow-up tour will be offered in April ’26, see the MVI calendar.

This questionnaire is a new didactic to practice systems thinking, scale-linking design, inner reflection, place-specific connection, bioregioning, resilience building, while it supports systemic design in general.

We offer this document here as a living shared filed, while we prefer to use it in the form of a pocket “booklet”, as shown below, perfect to use in the field.

Join us in co-shaping the advanced DRRS Systems Sensing-Mapping questionnaire. Feel inspired to reflect and work with the provided questions “here” – where you are standing right now, while you are travelling, or at your home.

This quiz version is “living” and in constant motion. Drop your insights, comments, or even a fresh question: DRRS Systems Sensing-Mapping questionnaire (v.01, Sept 2025).

The questionnaire is compiled with respect to the “original” Bioregional Quiz, while being expanded to a scale-linking, systemic design didactic.

Questionario di rilevamento e mappatura dei sistemi DRRS

Unitevi a noi nel contribuire alla definizione del questionario avanzato DRRS Systems Sensing-Mapping. Lasciatevi ispirare dalle domande fornite e rifletteteci sopra “qui”, ovunque vi troviate in questo momento, mentre siete in viaggio o a casa vostra. Questa versione del quiz è “vivente” e in costante evoluzione.

Lascia le tue opinioni, i tuoi commenti o anche una nuova domanda: Questionario di rilevamento e mappatura dei sistemi DRRS (v.01, settembre 2025). Il questionario è stato compilato sulla base del Bioregional Quiz “originale”, pur essendo ampliato a una didattica sistemica e collegata alla scala.

The Swiss AVINA STIFTUNG supports the program collaboration between MVI and ETH Zurich Systemic Design Labs in collaboration with Daniel Wahl on Mallorca for the initial project phase from 2024 to 2030.

Scaling bioregional regeneration and transformative integration in academia

This project is a holistic engagement with regenerative systems through regenerative design research and practice in two partnering, experimental Living Systems Labs (LSL), located in the bioregions

1. of the High Po River Valley downstream the Italian-French Alps toward the plains around Turin, and on

2. Mallorca as part of the Balearic Archipelago. 

Managed by the MonViso Institute’s (MVI) Swiss association, and the ETH Systemic Design Labs (SDL) group, the project scales deep into place-specific details through regenerative practices across spatial and governance scales, i.e. land use, food and material supply systems, cultural values, local climate change impacts, and social networks. It applies various didactics to weave projects, people, places and practices in their bioregional contexts – to then scale out and understand what can be shared and learnt for regenerative design and systemic intervention in other regions. This research, practice and learning is part of a leading academic program in Designing Resilient Regenerative Systems (DRRS), offered by ETH Zurich, both through a globally available, cost-free Massive Open Online Course series, and a top-level executive study degree as Master of Advanced Studies in Regenerative Systems. 

Through mutual engagement between the two LSL with long-term bioregional practices and networks, and the leading academic learning program in Regenerative Systems by ETH Zurich, the project is transforming academia to a certain extent by creating illustrations of regenerative practice in research and teaching of a globally leading, large science and engineering university.

How is the DRRS program structured and what makes it unique?

The DRRS program is best illustrated with a tree metaphor: The far visible crown with an uncountable number of leaves, sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere and building sugars through photosynthesis, comprises the cost-free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) series, with in total four MOOCs. 

After having studied one of the MOOCs, one can travel with the sugar saps through the branches and underneath the bark of the stem to the root system of the program, and study one of three Certificates of Advanced Studies (CAS). Each CAS, a hybrid study program with an intense in-person field design trip to the partnering LSL and a virtual live conversation part,  corresponds to one of the preparing MOOCs. If one took all MOOC’s and the three CAS’, one can take a final MAS module to finish one’s QUEST, an individual question-based design research project that is specific to place, to a bioregion, and attain the complete Master’s degree MAS ETH in Regenerative Systems.

Can the impact of successful implementation be measured? If so, how?

This project is systemic and unfolds its impact systemically – which means it takes time, it grows its relations and synapses and rhizomes often invisibly deep in the soil as the basis for healthy ecosystems. Regenerative practice is a systemic intervention which comprises sets of simultaneous actions in and from multiple parts of the system, and also non-actions as of giving e.g. mutual trust between people time to grow. 

The project applies concrete actions, research and didactics, such as the DRRS field design trips and the participants’ Quests as forms of bioregional research; the Systemic Cycles (S) didactic, a moving exploration to map bioregional flows of circularities, of engaging with the region and their stakeholders through repetitive (visual) dialogue; through the development of the Living Systems Labs (LSL) Explorer, a bio-geo-cultural data explorer to participate in regenerative practice. 

DRRS student numbers, participants’ feedback, Quest deliverables, guided SC tours, hosted events, various forms of outreach and publications, produced short movies, the LSL Explorer prototype – all of which are examples for measuring the impact of this project. Another major impact can be assessed through the further integration and embedding of regenerative practices into education and research at ETH Zurich, and its Long-term institutional establishment. The continuation of regenerative practices at and from the MonViso Institute’s LSL campus in the High Po River region, and the weaving practices of the Mallorca-Balearic LSL, are foundational for the project’s impact and success.

How was the idea for the project born?

This multi-faceted project has its roots in more than fifteen years of research, practice, teaching and outreach by Daniel Wahl and Tobias Luthe, together with their respective teams, supporters, and students. The project foundations evolved simultaneously but independently in the two partnering bioregional activities over the years, while the initiation for a joint project was formed through the launch of the first MOOC in the ETH DRRS program in about 2021.

 DRRS program director Tobias Luthe invited Daniel Wahl to collaboratively build up this program, and merge the rich practice experiences from both bioregions with the research capacity and educational reputation of ETH Zurich as a globally leading school. This MOOC collaboration was the launch of a highly successful partnership and the built-up of this triple partner project – ETH Zurich, MonViso Institute CH/IT, and Daniel Wahl’s work on the Balearic Archipelago of Spain. The mentioned specific projects and didactics within this main project – Systemic Cycles and Living Systems Labs Explorer – evolved from and around this nutritious collaboration, and already proved the impact.

Program lead and team:

Prof. (AHO) Dr. Tobias Luthe, ETH Zurich/MonViso Institute

Dr. Daniel Wahl, Weaver, Mallorca /ETH Zurich

Sylwia Orczykowska, ETH Zurich/MonViso Institute/ART NOW!

Michael Grimm, ETH Zurich/MonViso Institute 

Martin Schütz, ETH Zurich/ZHdK/MonViso Institute

The third Certificate of Advanced Studies “CAS ETH in Regenerative Systems: Systemic Design” has launched application period: 1-31 August 2024

Systemic Design: Navigating scientific, engineering, design and embodied methods with inner practices

We understand the emerging field or “sphere” of Systemic Design not as a discipline but a post-discipline – a hybrid combination of science, design and systems thinking-sensing, a set of challenge-based navigation processes, techniques and cultures.  We ask questions in Systemic Design to enact complexity through reflexive processes:

How do we enact uncertainty, immanent in complex systems? How do we navigate between science, engineering, design and inner practices for intervening toward desirable change? How do we curate inner practices for building holistic resilience of social-ecological systems? How does systems sensing relate with systemic innovation? How does Systemic Design spur regeneration? And how can all such help us to navigate, to guide, along identified challenges in the direction of desirable resilience and regeneration?

This CAS is the third out of a series of three CAS, leading to the MAS Master of Advanced Studies ETH in Regenerative Systems. The CAS’ build upon each other but can be taken in isolation and in different order. Each CAS’ theoretical and language base is the respective MOOC#1-3.

Practicing relational value of methods and the why-where-what-how

How do we navigate as designers, systems scientists, organic engineers, intervenors, weavers, nudgers, holistic planners, collaborative architects, curious practitioners – through emergent, largely un-plannable and emergent challenges – in a direction of desirable resilience, toward designing for regeneration within complex systems?

In Systemic Design we combine:

• quantitative scientific methods such as social network analysis, life cycle assessment or land use mapping by geospatial data,
• qualitative scientific methods such as content analysis, surveys or focus groups,
• engineering methods such as computer aided design CAD or laser scanning and 3D models,
• design methods like prototyping, visual dialogue, sketching, or systems narratives,
with embodied practices specific to enact the individual setting, such as the didactic Systemic Cycles, or forms of deep listening,
• accompanied by inner processes, such as experiencing types of flows beyond the mental and physical comfort zones, self-compassion, or silence.

We train both directly relevant scientific and engineering methods, design methods, and embodied practices in the context of navigating living systems and their applied relevance to real-world challenges.

A focus is on the relational value of methods – why do we engage, where, with what method, and how?

Self-reflexivity by the researcher(s) is key, through consciously curating a meta-perspective “view from above”/”meta-design”/”mental scaffolding”, with recursive processes of guiding the systemic design research: based on the main real-world challenge, repetitively asking questions by sensing the systems, remaining flexible to activate various types of hybrid methods and practices, from “hard” science to “soft” embodiment.

Field design trip to Mallorca, Spain

After a virtual course warm-up with a first live conversations with invited experts mid-October, and the initiation of each participants’ personal QUEST project as learning navigation spine, we embark on the physical core of this CAS – the in-person field design trip. The whole CAS cohort – maximum size 20 participants – meets for a one-week real-world immersion trip to the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, where we explore and embody hidden facets of bioregional regenerative weaving of the Balearic archipelago. We will meet with DRRS-lecturer Daniel Wahl to guide as through his lens of being a Balearic weaver for 15 years, and how he has been weaving toward regenerative futures. This period in autumn is ideal for a visit – the tourist season is over, the sea is warm, and the almonds, figs, and other fruits are ripe.

We will discover secluded farms, hike the Tramuntana mountains, swim and dive in a marine protected area with local biologists while the sea is warm, embark on a Systemic Cycles tour and live off the abundant wild food, and slow down on a 12 hours “solo” night time in the mountains.

7th RDT: E-Mobility – Re-thinking integrated mobility in the Alpine

6th RDT: Social Impact Investing: Financing Local Sustainability Innovation Projects / a social evening with international minds from the US, arriving on backcountry skis from Chamonix, and local Occitan culture.

Building and Designing with Hemp – Revival of a Forbidden Plant

Designing Alpine-Urban Circularity with the ETHZ Systemic Design Labs course

Mindfulness and Innovation for Regenerative Community Resilience

2nd RDT: Climate Change – Renewable Energy and City Innovation for Climate Protection

1st RDT: Bridging Synergies in Upcoming Development Projects of Ostana