Urbanizing the Alps: Densification Strategies for High-Altitude Villages 9783035617337, 9783035617191

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URBANIZING THE ALPS

URBANIZING THE ALPS Densification Strategies for Mountain Villages Fiona Pia

Birkhäuser Basel

To Wim and Axel

Contents 8

Abstract

10

ALPINE TOWNS IN CONTEXT

80

AVORIAZ

70 26

VERBIER The Epitome of Alpine Individualism: Chalets, Private Cars, and Urban Sprawl

• 1,500 m

ZERMATT Perfect Model of the Pedestrian-Oriented Alpine Town?

• 1,608 m

Innovative Integrated Resort: New Prototype for Alpine Density and Mobility • 1,800 m

188

COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF CASE STUDIES Verbier, Zermatt, Avoriaz, Whistler Blackcomb, and Andermatt Swiss Alps + Comparative map inserted at the end of this book

196

146

ANDERMATT SWISS ALPS Contemporary Densification of a Military “Wasteland” Connected to a Transport Infrastructure

DENSIFICATION STRATEGIES Contextualized Alpine Infrastructures

• 1,444 m

124

WHISTLER BLACKCOMB Planned Expansion of an Integrated Resort at Its Size Limit • 668 m

230

Bibliography, Images, Thanks

Abstract

8

Regional planning, especially in the Alps is, more than ever, high on the current news agenda in Switzerland. The skiing boom has driven massive urbanization in mountain areas, primarily in locations at altitudes of 1,400 meters or higher. For several decades this process has occurred with little or no planning, resulting in large inhabited areas comprising sparsely aggregated single-family chalets. The low density of this development model has produced urban sprawl, inevitably dependent on car usage. Second homes, an important economic driver in the mountains, are the crux of the issue here, and are regarded as the main culprit for this fragmented and profligate use of land. In 2012 the Fondation Franz Weber (FFW) Second Homes Initiative marked a watershed in Alpine region urbanization when the Swiss population voted with a 50.63 percent majority to ban construction of new second homes in municipalities where they account for 20 percent or more of the total housing stock. This initiative certainly has the merit of highlighting the existing situation in the Alps, where new legal, economic, and planning solutions are urgently required, but the current proposal fails to convince. Stigmatizing urbanization and densification, as this campaign effectively did, using photomontages designed to shock, does not constitute an adequate response. Alpine urban sprawl is not caused by urbanization alone, but rather by dispersal of the built environment. What strategies then, would safeguard the Alpine region and its landscape without merely clinging to the status quo that the Weber initiative seems to endorse? Would it not be preferable to further densify existing mountain towns in order to extend their life cycle and protect other, as-yet-undeveloped areas over the longer term? Shouldn’t we be developing appropriate mobility infrastructures within the new Alpine densification? These two hypotheses form the core of this book. Following a general theoretical summary of the current major challenges facing the Swiss Alpine environment, this study undertakes a focused analysis of various representative models of high-altitude towns and mobility systems, including Verbier (Valais, Switzerland), Zermatt (Valais, Switzerland), Avoriaz (France), Whistler Blackcomb (Canada), and Andermatt (Uri, Switzerland).

longer a matter of simply building new Alpine towns by colonizing almost untouched nature, as did the winter resorts of the 1960s, but of devising strategies to densify existing structures, acknowledging the deeply engraved Alpine heritage while dealing with its emerging shortfalls. This book focuses on the Verbier case study, which is highly representative of the problems caused by urban sprawl driven by small-scale individual initiatives and uncoordinated projects. Verbier is a mountain town that is currently reaching saturation point, with land-availability constraints, road congestion, and climate stresses, quite apart from the fact that the threshold for quantity of second homes has already been surpassed. In order to solve these various problems, our project envisions a new Alpine urbanization model that integrates urban densification with public transport infrastructure. Whereas to date, Verbier’s mobility system has helped to drive urban sprawl, this project demonstrates that redesign can promote the qualitative urbanization of strategic sites. A new type of inhabited infrastructure is defined and redefined in response to changing uses, flows, and natural contexts. The project illustrates and demonstrates that it is possible, indeed desirable, to densify Verbier further before investing in as yet undeveloped areas, such as the currently proposed project on the slopes of Bruson. While the mountain cannot be developed according to a single solution – each case is specific and requires a contextual response – this study provides the tools to design a densification strategy suited to each Alpine town. Alpine development today no longer means simply building new towns that colonize an almost untouched natural landscape, as was the case with the winter resorts of the 1960s. It means developing strategies for densifying existing urban areas, taking into account the built Alpine heritage, and also the significant dysfunction it represents; strategies for building in a built mountain environment.

The comparative summary of these case studies draws on previously unavailable data to demonstrate the limitations, not only of the dominant Alpine town model with its sprawling expansive coverage, but also of the compact city. Finally, this research uses spatial experimentation to ascertain the viable maximum size of an urban Alpine unit, defining the critical size for effective densification. Today, it is no

9

ALPINE TOWNS IN CONTEXT

Public opinion has long denied the true urbanization of the Alps, reducing it to the idyllic image of the individual chalet isolated in the middle of a vast virgin countryside, above a Swiss village similar to that portrayed by the National Exhibition of Geneva in 1896. This trompe-l’œil or “picturesque synthesis,” to use the words of Jacques Gubler, “embodies the image that Switzerland gives itself: a farming and artisanal village […] where the mountains define the national identity.” 1 More than a century later, this subterfuge continues to delude the collective imagination. In his article “Switzerland as a Hyper-city,” André Corboz denounces the tirelessly cherished myth that Switzerland is still perceived as “an agricultural country, inhabited by a population close to nature. The author states that “the nostalgia for ‘virgin countryside’ […] prevents most Helvetians from acknowledging the phenomenon of urbanization.”2 In recent decades several pioneers have proved that the simplifications “town = urban” and “countryside or mountain = natural” are obsolete, while inventing new words to describe a territory in transformation. However the community continues to cherish these two entities notwithstanding their increasingly antonymous relationships. In this distorted representation, the chalet is perceived as  a natural and nonurban element, when in reality it is at the origin of an important Alpine urbanization. Many Alpine towns, particularly those above 1,400 meters, were built by simply multiplying, by thousands, this rural emblem originally designed to meet a small-scale functional need.3 Although it is true that the isolated mayen surrounded by pasture land, as well as the occasional village untouched by the tide of urban development, still exists in the Alps, the scale of the towns is not of this archetype, but of that resulting from its proliferation, and of the infrastructure needed to serve it. One is no longer surrounded by virgin nature but by chalets, roads, and manicured lawns. Authorities have often given priority to the desire for individualism derived from this model, but with little overall planning. They have generally failed to anticipate their inadequacy to respond rationally to the dizzying rate of urban development resulting from the industrialization of skiing, the expansion of which continues spectacularly to the present day. The low-density housing 1 Gubler 1975, esp. pp. 29–32 and p. 35. 2 Corboz 2000, pp. 112–129. 3 Malfroy (2005) recalls in the Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse that the word chalet is a “Suisse-Romande” term originally designating rural buildings built on isolated clearings or on pastureland of medium and high altitude. The word mayen describes a simple, small, habitable barn used by Alpine farmers during the spring and autumn.

10

Document 0: The dream: an isolated chalet surrounded by alpine nature

Document 0: The reality: nature swallowed up by a multiplication of “dream” chalets

11

resulting from regional planning based mainly on the individual chalet has indeed caused considerable urban sprawl, confronting the current Alpine towns with serious dysfunction. Although almost all contemporary works devoted to the Alpine territory have the merit of drawing different urbanized mountain portraits, none focuses specifically on the problems resulting from this fragmented and expensive urbanization of the territory.4 In 2005 the Swiss Federal Office for Territorial Development even ignored the issue, merely classifying the Alps as a rural area as opposed to an area for urbanization. Contrast that with the frenetic Alpine development, advancing at a rate of one square meter per second, highlighted a year later by the initiative Sauver le sol suisse.5 It would clearly be necessary to wait for the latest popular initiatives, in particular that of the Franz Weber Foundation in 2012, to awaken a collective awareness of the need to curb Alpine urban sprawl, mainly due to the construction of second homes.6 The issue raised is legitimate: Alpine urbanization can no longer continue to carelessly swallow up the natural environment. The initiative recalls that the federal land-use law is not adapted to guarantee a rational occupation of the land. Instead it puts the authorities firmly before their responsibilities. The Alps are calling for new legal provisions to protect endangered natural heritage. Unfortunately, this state of affairs is denounced by ambiguous communication ploys. Here we will stick to criticism of the campaign images, without detailing the content of the initiative, because the citizen’s vote was very strongly influenced by some shocking photomontages. These do not condemn the dispersion of buildings but rather stigmatize the built-housing density and urbanization itself. Weber’s propaganda implants notions such as density = “element harmful for nature” and ugliness, or even urbanization = “anarchic rural development.”7 Comparing the poster for acceptance of this initiative with the poster against the revision of the federal land-use law (LAT) clearly summarizes these contradictions.8 One is supposed to criticize “anarchic rural development” and by implication urban sprawl; the other attacks densification within the existing urban 4 See Eisinger and Schneider 2003, 2005 report on urban development, ETH-Studio Basel and Institut pour la Ville Contemporaine 2006, and ARE 2010 Projet de territoire Suisse. Subsequently even the measurement indices developed by the research program PNR 54, Développement durable de l’environnement construit, ignore the reality of Alpine urban sprawl.

Commeire around 1930 (before skiing‘s industrialization)

Commeire in 2014

6 By banning the construction of new second homes in municipalities where their proportion is equal to or greater than 20 percent of the total housing stock, the initiative Stop the Invasive Construction of Second Homes marks an unprecedented legal shift in the current urbanization of the Swiss Alps.

5 Launched in 2006 by Franz Weber. It uses the dramatic indicator 1 m2/s: “each second one square meter of land disappears beneath concrete” to present urbanization as an uncontrolled gangrene that must be stopped.

7 Our research will prefer the notion of urban sprawl to its synonym “anarchic rural development.” The latter is based on a definition of the Alpine landscape that we consider romantic and bygone, reducing it exclusively to untouched countryside.

12 | Alpine Towns in Context

0

500 m

Verbier around 1930 (before skiing‘s industrialization)

Verbier in 2014

13

Document 1: Rural areas (in green) according to the map of the ARE report, 2005

Document 2: Photomontage of the the 2006 Save the Swiss Landscape campaign, with the slogan “Stop the uncontrolled concreting of our precious Swiss land.”

development: the defended positions are radically divergent and yet the two images are almost identical. Their slogans can be summarized as follows: to save the threatened natural countryside, we must stop urbanization or densification, and hence freeze the status quo. The poster thanking the population for accepting the Weber initiative represents Zermatt with the image of an isolated chalet facing the Matterhorn, claiming that stopping any new construction will allow access to this authentic Alpine dream. This conclusion sums up well the remarkable paradox raised by Weber: on the one hand, he accepts and condemns “anarchic rural development” while on the other, he acknowledges and idealizes the urban model that provokes it. In the same way, many citizens who accepted the initiative either own, or dream of owning, a chalet in the mountains. We can ask ourselves if this obstinacy in wanting to preserve the small, “natural”, individual chalet and simply copy it piecemeal as an ideal prototype applicable to all Alpine contexts is not the main culprit in causing serious damage to the countryside. If it turns out that the urban sprawl was mainly caused by this urbanization model and not by urbanization itself, we should not accept a strategy that claims not to want “mountain 14 | Alpine Towns in Context

towns”9 and seems content to focus on slowing or stopping any future development. Blocking the economic model of secondary residences – the main engine fueling Alpine urbanization – may allow the status quo to remain momentarily, but at the same time it is legitimate to ask whether the denounced anarchic rural development will be permanently solved without a challenge to the current dominant urban model. Maintaining the status quo means, above all, that we agree to abandon existing high-altitude towns in their present state, regardless of the serious problems they are facing. Today, many Alpine towns appear to be reaching their sustainable size limit. The debate led by Weber ignores the essential question of their endangered survival, while having a major impact on the protection of the landscape and of the “cherished familiar image of our hamlets […] and traditional villages.” 10 These towns, generally located at an altitude of between 1,400 and 1,900 meters (some begin lower but extend up to 1,400 meters) are not isolated at the mountaintop, but rather are interconnected (see map, p. 19). Numerous mobility infrastructures (road, rail, and also cable car networks) link this level

Document 3: Poster, Franz Weber campaign, 2012

Document 4: Poster against the revision of the LAT, 2013

of Alpine territory to the lower valley towns and to the higher adjoining “virgin” countryside.

8 Although it was developed independently of the 2012 Weber Initiative, the revision of the federal land-use law (LAT), accepted by the people in March 2013, also aims to curb urban sprawl. It aims at densification within the existing urban development, limiting construction in low-density, scattered, and isolated developments; construction zones could in addition be reclassified as nonconstructible.

Today’s proliferation and density of communication and transport facilities connect the valley and Alpine municipalities in both time and space. Is the distinction made by Weber between “the recreational town exported to the mountains as a seasonal appendage” and the “real town” obsolete? We are currently witnessing a major change in the configuration of urban components; the transition from “a recreational town exported to the mountains” to a town that takes over mountain territory. Indeed, a very large number of a town’s features have moved (or are moving) to the mountains: conference halls, theaters, museums, educational complexes, urban commerce, not to mention permanent residences. These changes are accompanied by new urban lifestyles such as commuting, dual residency, etc. The mountain’s attractiveness is explained by the search for nature – vistas, sunshine, fresh mountain air – but also by other factors, such as a cosmopolitan community, or tax and real estate benefits. Our research questioned and defined the Alpine city taking into account these contemporary territorial changes.11

9 RTS Forum 2012, Résidences secondaires: le grand débat de Forum, February 16, 2012. 10 Weber 2012, “Où est ma Suisse?“ in: Journal Franz Weber (January-February-March 2012), p. 12. 11 Several authors have been interested in this theme, notably Chenal and Kaufmann 2006 and Messerli, Scheurer, and Veit 2011a and 2011b. For example, an interview with Paul Messerli (ARE 2011, pp. 21–25) highlights the commuting flows between Upper Valais and Bern or between Lanquart and Zurich; Messerli even asserts that the economy between city and mountain is in the process of reversing.

15

Verbier

Zermatt

16 | Alpine Towns in Context

Saas-Fee

Loèche-les-Bains

17

Nauders

Klosters-Serneus Flims

Engelberg

Arosa

Davos

Scuol St Valentin auf der Haide

Valbella Vaz-Obervaz

Andermatt

Grindelwald Wengen

Savognin

Zweisimmen

Samedan

Adelboden Château-d’Oex

Lenk im Simmental

Gstaad

San Bernardino Bellwald

Lauchernalp Leukerbad

Villars-surOllon

Blatten bei Naters

Anzère

Gryon

Crans-Montana Bürchen Vercorin

Morgins Avoriaz

Champéry

Riederalp

Les Diablerets

Leysin

Ovronnaz

Mayens-deChamoson Nendaz

Chandolin

Nax Veysonnaz

Saint-Luc Grächen

Grimentz

La Tzoumaz Verbier

Celerina/ Schlarigna

Zinal Saas-Fee

Saint-Martin

Zermatt Flaine

Breuil-Cervinia 18 | Alpine Towns in Context Paquier

Saas-Grund

Bettmeralp

Madesimo

Pontresina St. Moritz

Livigno

2014 Territorial scale Alpine towns Section of the Alps between 1,400 and 1,900 m altitude

19

If the Alpine city deteriorates, the damage will certainly have repercussions throughout the territory because of the new mobility. How should one react to this critical and new situation? Some specialists consider the urban congestion of Alpine towns as a finite state in which it is no longer possible to intervene, and limit themselves to advocating the design of off-station projects. In reality, they appear to be trying to flee the town, hoping to replicate the small “picturesque hamlet” elsewhere, on a more isolated site. It is said that these “blend into the landscape,” when in fact they impose, on smaller plots, the same urban model as the criticized and disputed town, simply replacing the second homes with hotels or condominiums that guarantee occupancy and thus obtain building permission. In addition, this small-scale urban development also requires the construction of new infrastructure to serve it and often to connect it to transport networks lower in the valley. This absurd strategy creates yet more developments, on still relatively preserved countryside, while leaving the Alpine towns to gradually die, such that they eventually become large urban and mobility wastelands. On the contrary, would it not be possible, even desirable, to increasingly densify the population of Alpine towns in order to prolong their life cycle and thus save yet undeveloped countryside in the long term? Should not we develop mobility infrastructure in line with such population densification? These questions will be at the heart of our research. Unlike other Alpine subjects, the fundamental question of densifying mountain towns to solve their current saturation is yet to be the subject of precise and thorough study. Nonetheless, that is the main strategy for sustainable protection of the countryside. Faced with such glaring unanswered questions, this book had to be written. It should be noted that the chosen subject is of course very dependent on socioeconomic and legal aspects. While not specifically mentioned, they were included when undertaking this much-needed study, the main focus of which is urban analysis and the proposal of project strategies. The first part of the book, devoted to the targeted analysis of different representative models of Alpine towns and mobility networks, will reveal that, for the first time since the 1960s, many high-altitude towns are now reaching their viable size limit. We will show, using previously unpublished data, that the extent of current problems (allowable percentage of second homes exceeded, but also, and most importantly, climate change, limits to building enlargement, and mobility infrastructure congestion) actually seem to announce the imminent end of an urban life cycle.12 20 | Alpine Towns in Context

Five Significant Case Studies Verbier is the Swiss Alpine town most representative of the urban sprawl problem caused by the low density of the individual chalet. Although other Alpine towns, such as Crans-Montana, are more dispersed over the countryside, Verbier is the one that currently appears to present the most critical general saturation level. The analysis of Verbier will confirm that priority densification of the town’s remaining building land is a last chance to resolve its lack of sustainability and thereby guarantee perennity. Even so, a mere extension of the existing urban system, based on car transport and the low density of individual chalets, would be totally ineffective as a means of developing and occupying the last available hectares, or of totally resolving existing problems that have become unsustainable. Contrary to popular opinion, Zermatt is not the ideal counterexample to Verbier. We chose Zermatt, not as an ideal example of a pedestrian city, but rather to demonstrate that a growing town cannot be exclusively reserved for pedestrian circulation. Today Zermatt is subject to severe road congestion caused by the numerous flows of electric cars because, like Verbier, it was conceived without initial transport planning. Our comparative synthesis will show the many disconcerting similarities between these two towns of almost identical urban sprawl. On the other hand, it would not be enough to simply return to the historical model of the compact new towns of the sixties. This urban artifact – dense, functional, dedicated to pedestrians and at the same time, holistically planned – allows (generally) a better occupation of the land but has been exclusively designed for greenfield sites. Nor can we apply this model to densify habitation of existing Alpine towns as it applies to a specific development style that is not exportable. However, the analysis of three types of compact towns will provide indispensable project drivers to examine the current densification of an existing sprawling town, its size limit, and its relation to mobility and to high-Alpine countryside. In order to illustrate the historic compact Alpine town, we have chosen the French example of Avoriaz, emblem of the integrated ski resort. This case study will illustrate the interdependence between size, high build density, and pedestrian mobility; the maximum comfortable walking distance defines the size of this car-free town. We will show that this urban core, conceived in the 1960s as a self-contained microcosm good for a thirty-year life, is now at saturation level. This is accentuated by the need to integrate additional beds, as recently requested by the developer.

The need for growth, not anticipated by the initial project, questions the size of the system, any expansion jeopardizing the principle of mobility, and therefore the viability of urbanization. By comparing Avoriaz and Verbier, we discover surprisingly that today these two opposing models are simultaneously reaching their critical size. 12 Several authors have questioned the notion of size limit; we think in particular of the garden city of Ebenezer Howard (1898) or the compact city of Elizabeth Burton (1999). The translated article by Paola Viganò (2013) also highlights the fundamental notion of a life cycle.

21

Whistler Blackcomb, a compact interwoven town, is a unique example of the planned expansion of a basic integrated ski resort. The closest French equivalent, such as Les Arcs (a case also composed of interconnected pedestrian cores) doesn’t pose the same questions regarding the urban paradoxes between compact and sprawling development raised by the Canadian case. Whistler Blackcomb is designed around a basic pedestrian core (Whistler) and integrates the future need for extension by planning a second core (Blackcomb) with the same urban characteristics. This strategy preserves the qualities of a compact town without the risk that enlargement will jeopardize the internal relationship between size and pedestrian mobility. To date, the two cores still provide good urban and economic operation. We will see, however, that it is not enough to design such sustainable prototypes in order to create a sustainable town; land use and mobility between the two cores becomes a key issue. The unplanned urban development that occurred around the two compact cores at a later date contradicts and ignores the existing built density and pedestrian mobility. In consequence, it has caused alarming urban sprawl and traffic congestion. By reversing the chronology of the stages of urbanization, we could read the case of Whistler Blackcomb as a Verbier into which we insert, on the last free building plots, autonomous compact cores, independent of the existing urbanization. This projection makes it possible to understand that the sustainability of Verbier would not be solved by a compact system that would densify the town while ignoring the problems of the existing road network. Andermatt Swiss Alps is the only contemporary case in the entire Alpine arc of compact large town construction that densifies an existing village. Andermatt’s new project will prove that taking into account preexisting mobility infrastructures is a key element to thinking about densification of an inherited Alpine infrastructure. Unlike Avoriaz and Whistler Blackcomb, this compact project of similar size is not an artifact implanted in the middle of pristine nature, requiring construction of new transport infrastructure to access it, but a densification project grafted onto the existing village and mobility networks. To connect the new development, the project invents a hybrid infrastructure that manages the site’s various mobility networks – pedestrian movement and existing external transport systems – together with protection against natural hazards. We will see that this consolidation guarantees very rational land use and also makes it possible to control, contrary to Whistler Blackcomb, any future “stray” urban spread around the basic compact core and the existing settlement. Unfortunately, the new project of Andermatt 22 | Alpine Towns in Context

is limited to building habitation units on a civil engineering substructure and doesn’t exploit the space and program potential of a habitable infrastructure approach. In the second part of the book, we’ll experiment spatially, via the architectural and urban project, with the maximum viable size of an Alpine town by defining a densification size limit. What new approach would qualitatively densify a sprawling Alpine town? Taking sprawling Verbier as a basis of study in order to jointly solve its various saturation levels, we’ll show that interlinking the remaining building areas to themselves and to the existing elements is fundamental. Above all, our project will illustrate that only a new model of Alpine urbanization, integrating urban densification and public transport infrastructure, can guarantee Verbier’s sustainability. This new solution shows that if the existing mobility system were until now a vector of urban sprawl, it can, by redefining itself, become a guarantor of quality urban regrouping at strategic sites. The proposed new urban model is not only designed to densify and rationally connect with the existing town but also to establish a new relationship with the Alpine countryside. Consolidation and improvement of the transportation system within the same infrastructure will produce new internal opportunities while spawning external ones. The different section drawings through this inhabited infrastructure will show how a basic metric is formed and deformed according to the different transport flows, activities, and natural contexts. Often summarized as a simple place of passage, here the transport infrastructure is transformed into an exclusively pedestrian public balcony, where it is good to stop, feel the mountain air, look out at the peaks of more than 4,000 meters in height, or simply enjoy the surrounding animation. New spatial relationships are also established between private and public programs grouped around this pedestrian and natural vista; the high-density building project creates a new qualitative way of living in the mountains. We will show that the projected habitable surfaces allow the addition of 250,000 square meters to the existing urban development. To achieve the same increase in habitable surface using the existing approach would require four times more floor space than our new model. While the project allows for more rational land occupation, thereby preserving the countryside against future urban sprawl, we will see that the size of the proposed works can give rise to certain reactions: regret for the disappearance of the individual chalet model, its small size, its domestic and private character, etc. However, it is time to admit that the isolated chalet no longer exists in Verbier. Above all, high-altitude countryside has long been colonized by large infrastructure such

as viaducts, tunnels, and other covered galleries, yet we never compare the scale of the chalet against this infrastructure because the two models have different functions. So our project is deliberately defined as civil engineering work and not as a large building; its size must be read in relation to the territorial scale of transport. It is necessary to understand the proposed densification in relation to this large scale; the project is limited to supplementing an existing potential in order to perpetuate it. The high mobility connecting Verbier to the valley’s main transport axis and a scale of urbanization that groups public infrastructure make it possible to host urban activities in the mountains. Transplanting inhabited infrastructure onto existing mobility networks takes into account the needs of new emerging Alpine lifestyles: we will show that these require a specific mobility and a minimal urbanization size. The project anticipates what the high-altitude town is destined to become: an extension of a real town reconciled with Alpine countryside. The Alpine city of the future will certainly no longer be defined by single, isolated compact units surrounded by pristine nature, requiring new transport infrastructure to connect it to the valley, but by a holistic development of the existing town onto which will be grafted several compact cores connected by public transport. Although they cannot be freely exported to any Alpine contexts, inhabited infrastructure will reveal project drivers that shape creativity while densifying habitation of high-altitude towns.

23

VERBIER The Epitome of Alpine Individualism: Chalets, Private Cars, and Urban Sprawl

26

A plateau at an altitude of 1,500 meters, facing south with a magnificent view of 4,000-meter-tall mountain peaks, Verbier was an exceptional site, almost untouched sixty years ago, when it was occupied only by some Alpine mayens. According to the criteria of defenders of the Swiss myth, this natural idyll has been transformed into an urban nightmare, a mutation that occurred relatively recently but very quickly. Indeed, Verbier was transformed from a small agricultural village into a winter sports resort without ever developing as a summer spa tourist destination, unlike other Alpine villages. Studies led by Armin Meili in the 1940s of different Alpine urban developments show the small size of Verbier compared to the examples of Leysin or Zermatt, while today, Verbier far exceeds them in size.13 In the case of Verbier, we first summarize the evolution of the building and infrastructure morphology. We then analyze two town development projects; these were not built but are valuable because they allow one to question differ­ ent notions of urban density. Finally, we will focus on an analysis of Verbier today: reaching its critical size, this mountain town is confronted with several urban dysfunctions that endanger its perennity.

Piecemeal Development: A Race Between Urbanization and Transport Infrastructures The meteoric growth of Verbier took place by piecemeal expansion, by the construction of individual chalets, without an initial development plan, resulting in an invasion of the surrounding countryside. In sixty years, the inhabited area of Verbier has increased by a factor of thirty over that of the original village, changing from a dense, rational settlement, dictated by climate and topography, to a sprawling and somewhat artificial town. The layout of building plots is representative of an urban development dictated by the desires of private interests. As already summarized by Charles-V. Barras in 1987, it is a “multiplicity of promoters […], little urban planning, in a word, generalized individualism.” This urban sprawl has made it impossible to travel by foot, requiring the use of a private car. Neither has the urbanizationmobility binomial been the subject of any planning, the latter inevitably playing catch-up with the random development of the former. “Transport usually brings structure to an urban settlement. In Verbier, however, transport follows the settlement’s structure, which is dictated solely by construction (real estate lobby).” 14 We can simply summarize Verbier’s evolution as two main stages: sprawling colonization of adjacent Alpine pasture by detached chalet-style dwellings followed by densification within the newly colonized perimeter. This growth started slowly in the 1950s, accelerated in the 1960s, and increased significantly in 1970s to become vertiginous during the period 1980–90.15 From the year 2000  – when the limits of extension were reached – until today, growth continues by densification within the existing built area. The key stages of development are shown by sections 1 and 2 and schematics 1–6. The main area plans (documents 1 to 3) show the lack of initial overall planning and a subsequent nonbinding development plan that has not been able to avoid a resultant urban sprawl. 13 See Meili 1945. Zurich architect Armin Meili supervised various studies of Alpine towns and he personally ran the Verbier study. We will analyze his project later (pp. 36–39). 14 See Kauffmann 2002, especially chapter 9 and annex 15. 15 To highlight the new modern urbanization of Alpine pasture, dedicated entirely to skiing and marking the break with the historical agricultural core, official maps, as early as the 1960s, clearly distinguish two urban entities: Verbier Station and Verbier village.

Extract from the plan of Verbier building plots

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1935

28 | Verbier

Cross section 1 0

500 m

29

Schematic 1 : 1935

Schematic 3 : 1961

Schematic 5 : 2000

Schematic 2 : 1950

Schematic 4 : 1977

Schematic 6 : 2014

30 | Verbier

0

500 m

1935–2014 Evolution of Verbier

31

2014

32 | Verbier

Cross section 2 0

500 m

33

Document 1: Zone plan, 1960

34 | Verbier

Document 2: Zone plan, 1977

Document 3: Zone plan, 1997 (in operation today)

Schematic 7: Evolution of the construction zone 123 ha in 1960 281 ha in 1977 235 ha in 1997

35

Plan Meili versus SuperVerbier, Urban Sprawl versus Density How could Verbier have been developed differently? The interest of two unrealized projects lies in their response to this question, each with the proposition of a distinct urban model fitting into a very different, existing context. One, the Meili plan (1945), proposed an overall plan for the future development of Verbier, which was then an embryo of a few guest houses and chalets alongside the preexisting mayens surrounded by a vast expanse of mountain countryside. The other, the SuperVerbier plan (1970), imagines a satellite tourist city connected by a cable car to Verbier, even at that time a fast-expanding urban sprawl. As early as 1945, Meili anticipated the signs of land speculation at Verbier. To avoid “careless development,” his plan designates some areas as prohibited for building (red lines, document 4).16 The architect designed a new urbanization plan that blocks all subsequent development, which he considered optimal for Verbier. This position has the merit of anticipating and planning the limits of built areas. Unfortunately, despite an interesting initial intention, the Meili plan proposes an insufficient built density, which leads to an unjustifiable occupation of the building areas. As a comparison of selected densities shows (schematics 8 to 12), the urban model uses the most floor space. If the surrounding countryside seems less affected by the Meili plan than by the urbanization that has taken place, it is because its building area limit only concerns the lower part of the plateau, whereas Verbier’s actual limit extends far beyond that (documents 1 and 3, schematic 7). The density of the Meili plan would not have been able to contain the strong development triggered by winter sports.17 In the early 1950s, barely five years after the Meili plan, Verbier had already exceeded 2,500  beds; in 1955, it had 3,500 beds and this number has grown exponentially to almost 30,000 beds today.18 The initial idea of containing all of Verbier’s development within the lower plateau is commendable and certainly would have been possible, though with an entirely different plan for built density. This would also have allowed mobility throughout the urban space exclusively on foot. As confirmed by the Meili plan, pedestrian mobility is possible as long as urban sprawl does not exceed a certain size. The length of the project’s central road, about one kilometer, allows a pedestrian to easily move along this axis, which groups all public amenities. Perpendicular paths connected to this axis, with a maximum length of 500 meters and exclusively pedestrian, give access to the individual chalets. The grouping of these into several clusters, 36 | Verbier

Document 4: Construction zones, Meili plan (1945)

Document 5: Landscape planning, Meili plan (1945)

which thereby clears circulation spaces between these urbanization zones, allows a skier easy access to the resort’s center from the ski slopes above. The Meili plan’s mobility scheme is very similar to the reality of the resort’s mobility in 1950. In the 1960s, the urban sprawl already exceeded the limits defined by the Meili plan and hence the distances to be covered have made pedestrian mobility difficult. In the absence of public transport (which has served Verbier since 1974), the car is the only possible means of travel. The SuperVerbier project was born in 1970, within an urban context, and with much building already completed. Although directly connected to Verbier, it’s an autonomous satellite that isn’t implanted in the middle of the existing buildings but colonizes “virgin” land at an altitude of 1,900 meters (document 6, schematic 14). The legitimacy of this implantation, outside the broad perimeter of the future building zones proposed by the 1977 plan, is certainly debatable. Indeed, we can blame the project for not proposing its implantation on closer land, thereby directly densifying Verbier Station. Nevertheless, SuperVerbier is interesting because it questions the

existing urbanization and above all because it proposes an alternative to the individual chalet model. The project defines an urban compactness, served by public transport, which allows for more rational land use than that of Verbier Station. The comparison of the chosen densities (schematics 8 to 12) shows that SuperVerbier is the urban model that uses the least area of land. Note also that its implantation area is almost identical to that of Verbier village (although the density suggested by the cross section is different). This compact area is interesting because it allows exclusively pedestrian circulation within the urban “core.” As its name suggests, SuperVerbier is a large structure that contains all services required for autonomous operation. Its conception is inspired by the global management ideas for integrated ski resorts. Unlike other megastructure-type tourism projects of the same era, such as the famous Sunset Mountain Park project in the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles, SuperVerbier chose to ban the car. Access would be exclusively by public transport: from Verbier village, a cable car can reach SuperVerbier, 300 meters higher (schematic 14). The choice of cable transport is better suited to the steep slope and less expensive than the construction of new roads. In addition, it is part of a global innovative mobility trend: SuperVerbier not only proposes a cable car link to the plateau, but also to continue the link to provide access to future ski slopes. Unfortunately, SuperVerbier only deals with its implantation zone, ignoring existing urbanization, without consideration of Verbier’s overall development. This brief analysis of the Meili and SuperVerbier plans shows that neither of them would have prevented the urban sprawl that is Verbier today. Nevertheless, these projects open avenues for reflection that allow us to better understand not only the change that has, or could have happened, but also the current issues that we’ll develop below.

Document 6: Photomontage SuperVerbier project (1970) 16 The Meili plan introduced the notion of prohibited building zones, 22 years before the 1977 zone plan. If the 1977 ban was imposed for the safety of people from avalanches, the Meili plan was a development initiative; see Meili 1945, esp. pp. 193–203 for the analysis of Verbier Station and insert 29 for the project proposal. 17 Meili was convinced that Verbier Station was predestined to become a development for the summer cure and secondarily for sport. It therefore established a program and a number of 2,500 beds that would define the layout for a predominantly spa-focused resort. 18 Barbier, Nomazy, and Veuve 1974, p. 4.2.

37

1935

1945

2014

2014

1970

Schematics 8 to 12: Density samples Alpages (1935), Meili plan (1945), Verbier village (2014), Verbier (2014), and SuperVerbier (1970)

38 | Verbier

0

100 m

0 100 m

Schematic 13: Construction zones in 2014, 235 ha

← SuperVerbier

Schematic 14: Occupied land surface according to the Meili plan in 1945 (project not realized), 118 ha

0

500 m

39

Verbier Reaches Saturation Point Several parameters demonstrate the current critical situation in Verbier: 19 limit of densification, road infrastructure congestion, “climate” saturation, and exceeding the allowable second home threshold. Although this state of affairs appears common to several major Alpine towns, it is particularly so in Verbier. We will analyze the current plan according to various criteria in order to quantify, with precise measurements, the irrationality of Verbier’s current urban model. Critical Size and a Low Built Density The zoning plan used since 1997 defines an authorized building area of 235 hectares (document 3). Within that there are four main building zones called tourist areas (T1, T2, T3, and T4) that correspond to a decrease in built density (from 0.8 to 0.25). Around 60 percent of Verbier village’s surface area is covered by buildings with a density of less than 0.3 and a roof height of less than 9 meters, the average density being 0.40. Our analysis defines the urbanization of Verbier in terms of individual chalet construction, which is predominant despite the existence of some multilevel “chalet buildings.” To be able to precisely define Verbier’s size, but also to make necessary comparisons with the other case studies, it proved

T4

40 | Verbier

indispensable to calculate the existing building’s habitable surface area. Having grown in a piecemeal manner, the town doesn’t have a register summarizing the data. However, it emerges from this work that Verbier has approximately 963,000 square meters of habitable surface built aboveground in the authorized building zone and about 34,000 square meters outside of it. 20 The T1 zone has 325,000  square meters built, or 34 percent of the total habitable surface within the authorized zone; T2 zone, 233,000 square meters built, or 24 percent; T3 zone, 242,700 square meters built, or 25 percent; and the T4 zone accounts for only 117,500  square meters, or 12 percent. The other zones represent 44,000 square meters built, or 5 percent. Though it contains the largest number of square meters built, the T1 zone uses the smallest floor area, 15 percent of the total authorized building area. According to the survey, to build the same habitable surface area, the T4 zone would require four times more land. Analysis of the cadastral plan also revealed a hidden feature of Verbier: its underground expansion. In attempting to measure the extent of this growth, we examined building permits from 2003 to 2013. This review confirms the extent of underground development that has occurred, mainly since 2003, by the addition of large luxury basements to existing “standard” individual chalets. The result of the basement analysis further demonstrates the irrationality of Verbier’s urban model: in order to

T3

T2

T1

preserve the appearance of the idyllic image of the individual chalet, extensive underground development is being added. The comparison of the average ratio of habitable surface areas aboveground to the basement areas is significant: the T1 zone has only 22 percent of its total underground area; zone T2, 25 percent; zone T3, 30 percent and zone T4, 42 percent (a proportion which, locally, can even reach 80 percent). Sections 3 and 4 show the inversion of the building volumes between the surface and the underground construction. This strong underground development accentuates the manipulation of the countryside already evident at the surface as urban sprawl, and furthermore requires large-scale civil engineering works to build individual chalets. Nature, topography, and climate are totally ignored. Verbier today has approximately 2,156 chalets, approximately 1,350,000 square meters of habitable surface within the authorized zone, of which 963,000 square meters (71 percent) is aboveground and 387,000 square meters (29 percent) is belowground. Verbier is the contemporary demonstration of the viability limits for urban development based on the individual chalet. The Size map (p. 44) highlights the remaining empty parcels of land owned by the town. 21 These represent only 3 percent of the total building area but are increased to the indicated 10 percent if we include the densification zones defined by the Verbier sector master plan (document 9). Note that the densification zone above the Esserts district and the deferred allocation area above the Sonalon are

T4

considered to be building zones by this plan. In the current context of the revised LAT, we must question the creation of new building zones. In Verbier, some specialists propose densification by demolition and reconstruction of existing sites coupled with an “off station” development – for example in the Bruson area, where a project for 1,100 new beds is planned. We do not share this “colonizing” vision. Building in Bruson does not solve Verbier’s current problems; furthermore, it targets conserved nature. 19 To mark the difference between the sports village and the Alpine town, we make a voluntary distinction between Verbier Station, a town, exclusively related to skiing; and Verbier, a contemporary high-Alpine town which is no longer exclusively related to skiing but also welcomes urban events in the same way as any “real” town. 20 It should be noted that the few chalets and mayens outside the building zone were constructed before the definition of the avalanche zones of the 1977 plan, updated after the heavy avalanches of 1978. Since that date, any new construction outside the building zone is formally prohibited. 21 We intentionally omit the remaining empty private building plots. In an urbanization dictated by private interests, it seems unrealistic to rely on these lands to solve Verbier’s current problems. As we will see below (p. 47), the master plan of the Verbier sector only takes into account the parcels owned by the town.

T3

T2

T1

Cross sections 3 and 4: View of the subsoil built densities

0

50 m

41

235 ha Building zones

963 000 m

2

Habitable surface built

0,146

Floor area ratio (FAR)

0,40 Density

42 | Verbier

Densities | Building heights (floors)

2-3

4

5

0

200 m

43

10 %

of available public building zones

44 | Verbier

Size

0

200 m

45

This view is that of the carefree developer from the 1960s who initially colonized the virgin countryside. Is it not smarter to classify the deferred allocation zone or the Esserts zone, areas bordering Verbier’s existing urbanization, as building zones, and to decommission the building sites of the Bruson mayens? Is it not preferable to build in Verbier with south-facing views of mountains over 4,000 meters tall instead of building in the shadow of Bruson overlooking the sprawl? Should one not densify to a maximum a Verbier that benefits from existing infrastructure and where land prices are the most expensive to decommission? Why not use the densification of Verbier to kill two birds with one stone: solve its current problems and protect the more isolated virgin countryside? Of course, the creation of new building zones seems justifiable only as part of an overall plan and where they constitute an indispensable urban element. Today, careful consideration of the urbanization model for Verbier’s remaining building plots is fundamental. Above all, their planning cannot take place in isolation from the mobility issue. The latter currently demonstrates major dysfunctions. It seems imperative to propose a resolution of the existing state before considering any further densification, and thereby avoid further aggravation of the transport problem. Congestion of the Road Infrastructure The transport problem is seriously endangering the quality of life in Verbier, while confirming its lack of sustainability. Faced with this critical issue, different studies have proceeded to analyze the transport situation and have proposed courses of action to resolve the current problem. 22 All the studies agree on one point: today, it is necessary for Verbier to sign up to a system of sustainable development and mobility. It is essential to make clear from the outset that despite the importance of the mobility problems highlighted below, only the 1991 Transportplan study quantitatively records traffic movement within Verbier. To date, no further studies have made a new, accurate record of traffic flow, which nonetheless continues to increase in frequency and intensity. We must therefore base our research on work that is more than twenty years old and that is not exhaustive because studies carried out by third parties in the last decade have not updated these data. It would be essential to make an accurate analysis of the current traffic flow in Verbier before taking any action; nevertheless, the available documents allow us to define the general problem that we have enriched by our urban studies. The analyses carried out by EPFL’s TRACE-LASUR laboratories in 2010, and by Landolt & Cie SA, Transports Martigny and Régions SA and the 6t-Research bureau in 2014 recall Verbier’s 46 | Verbier

large-scale mobility potential, given its proximity to the Lake Léman Basin. Even if today, the majority of trips are made by car, achieving strong public transport (train and cable car) accessibility in Verbier is an important point of development. Verbier’s transport system can be summarized as comprising a principal network onto which are grafted a multitude of capillaries (private transport network plan). Today the principal network is no longer able to cope with the flow of traffic, up to 10,000 vehicles per day. The numerous car journeys between the spreading residential areas and the central zone containing the majority of amenities cause disturbing congestion: traffic jams, noise, pollution, random parking, etc., which is exacerbated by snow in the winter. In addition, the only public transport serving the interior of the urban area is ineffective because buses share the roads built for cars (bus network plan). Even if it serves a large area of Verbier free of charge, the bus cannot keep to its schedule because of traffic jams. Walking is not an option because the distances to be covered are too great; in any event, the only public space conceived for the pedestrian is a discontinuous sidewalk along the main road artery, which is not easy to use (pedestrian network plan). The sidewalk is not always protected by a change in level or traffic barriers; frequently it is simply indicated by road markings. During heavy traffic, cars easily invade the pedestrian area. Thus, even if the cable car linking Le Châble to Verbier allows the pedestrian to arrive by public transport quickly and independently of the traffic flow, his or her route is disrupted upon arrival in Verbier.

Documents 7 and 8: Congestion; car, public transport (bus), pedestrian

Document 9: Master plan, Verbier sector, commune of Bagnes (2012–2014)

The master plan for the Verbier sector, updated in 2014, proposes for the first time a joint approach addressing both transport and accommodation needs (hotels). This plan is based on the previous 2007 study (Transportplan, Urbaplan and Drosera 2007) while making significant improvements. Although this project has the merit of highlighting the state of emergency in Verbier, and despite laudable intentions to resolve it, the proposed new public transport system is not a satisfactory alternative to deal with today’s varying saturation levels. We question the basic strategy, which requires the construction of a bypass road in order to guarantee the viability of the new public transport system. In addition, the discontinuity of the new funicular route and its lack of connection with existing public transport, in particular the Médran cable car, does not guarantee either an efficient internal service for the municipality or a link with larger-capacity rail transport. Above all, the plan ignores existing climate imbalances and topographical constraints in its proposal to build a bypass road, with two of the three funiculars planned for red danger zones.

22 See Transportplan 1991; Urbaplan, Transportplan, and Drosera 2007; Kaufmann and Munafò 2010; and Landolt & Cie SA, Transports Martigny et Régions, and 6t-Bureau de recherche 2014.

47

48 km

of road network to serve 963,000 m2 of habitable surface built

48 | Verbier

Road network

0

200 m

49

Principal pedestrian network reduced to that of the automobile network Discontinuous footpaths within Verbier

50 | Verbier

Footpath network |

Footpath

Footpath outside Verbier

Mechanical lifts

0

200 m

51

Bus network saturated by the automobile network

52 | Verbier

Bus network

0

200 m

53

Saturation of Natural Countryside Several factors clearly show a marked impact on the natural countryside (topography, vegetation, natural dangers) and its actual limits. The altitude and the climatic conditions reinforce the absurdity of applying an urban model in the mountains. Even if Verbier’s climate is mild – south-facing, little fog, protected from strong winds, 250 days (equivalent to 1,822 hours) of sunshine per year – compared to other Alpine towns, the 29 days of fresh snow require significant maintenance of the road infrastructure. The climate is hence an additional disruptive factor for an already congested traffic flow. The topography accentuates these winter difficulties. The town initially grew by building on the flatter land but the urban spread then continued onto very steep ground, no longer following the logic dictated by topography but simply the requirements for construction. Today, 77  percent of the building zone is on slopes of 18 to 35 percent, 11 percent on slopes of 35 to 50 percent, and 12 percent on slopes greater than 50 percent. The many buttresses and retaining walls provide visible testimony of significant modifications to the natural slopes (plan topography). There is a tendency to define Verbier as a plateau at 1,500 meters of altitude; however, if this was the case in the past, today’s buildings are located well outside this topographic perimeter, reaching up to 1,800 meters. The resultant 300-meter change in ground level across Verbier visually accentuates the impact of urban development and induces variable climatic conditions within it. Today, almost all the land within the building zone has been built on, and the “green” soil remaining around the perimeter is defined by a private, artificially maintained “natural” reserve (individual lawns, golf course, etc.). Verbier, a mountain town, has no green public space within its building zone. Nature is used as a complementary spatial device for its privatization by individual chalets: Verbier has 39 linear kilometers of planted hedges and many added trees. Above all, the initially natural countryside is so strongly modified by urban sprawl that it can no longer continue in its role of climate regulator. Verbier’s urbanization is today subject to many natural dysfunctions. Although the allocation plan includes the avalanche zones (1977) and the zones of ground instability (1997), it does not take into account a fundamental danger for Verbier: water movement. This danger is the subject of a separate map. 23 At the outset, each property owner diverts and buries the stretch of stream crossing his land that hinders the building of his chalet. The result is a hydraulic network that has been modified piecemeal, without planning. Today, the municipality deals with watercourse control but 54 | Verbier

this lack of initial planning has prevented the establishment of a comprehensive flood-risk management concept. Everyone protects their building plot through small, individual interventions (deflecting walls, waterproofing, etc.). Numerous constructions above- and belowground prevent water from flowing normally, causing significant floods in Verbier and also, by result, in the villages below. Faced with this critical situation, several variants have been devised by the Hydrocosmos office, which states that the complexity of the study of Verbier’s floods is second only to that of the Rhône 3 project in the Valais. As with the avalanche zones, building is forbidden in the red zone, which indicates danger related to water movement. The yellow zone, representing 20 percent of the total building area, indicates low risk and is not subject to particular restrictions. However, this low risk at the surface could become a high-risk red zone belowground due to hydrology changes when a chalet acquires several basement levels. For completion, the water hazard map should contain an accurate record of underground construction and water movement. The plan summarizing all hazards shows that 41 percent of the building areas are in a danger zone (low to high risk). Today, several studies are raising awareness of the climate change impact, which will accentuate these problems. Nonetheless, climate change has a positive aspect for high-altitude urban development. As recalled by an EPFL-REME study carried out in 2012, the increase in temperature will have an impact on summer attendance. When it becomes very hot in the valley, people seek the fresh climate of the mountains. Although Verbier is artificial and “urban” within the building area, the surrounding natural countryside and views are spectacular (views of the 4,000-meter peaks, including the Grand Combin). Above all, these areas are directly accessible from Verbier by public transport (cable car). Unfortunately, as already mentioned, the master plan of the Verbier sector does not integrate this great potential for existing public transport within Verbier’s future internal public transport project. In addition, as we have also seen, the proximity between the Lake Léman and the Valais creates new agendas that are not limited to winter or summer tourism but that influence a new, year-round lifestyle. This element is to be taken into account during consideration of the second-home effect. Limitation of the Second-Home Economic Model Approximately 64 percent of Verbier’s residences are second homes. Not being able to obtain a precise census of second homes, we based our research on current official documents as well as on data

from the Tourist Office. Of the total second homes, only 5 percent are rented out. 24 Today, Verbier has exceeded its limiting threshold for secondary homes (greater than 20 percent) and therefore cannot construct new ones. Verbier’s remaining available plots can nonetheless be built upon if a new economic model is proposed based upon hotels and guaranteed bed occupancy. However, the problem of urban sprawl will not be solved without calling into question the low density of the current development model.

23 The hydrological hazards map of Verbier was only established in 2004 (whereas the the average date for such maps for the rest of Switzerland is 1990), more than thirty-five years after registering the first avalanches in 1968. Consideration of the risks related to water movement follows an interview with Mrs. Beyer Portner and Mr. Dubois of the Hydrocosmos design office, mandated to map the hydrological hazards for Verbier.

The problem of unoccupied beds in Verbier is a direct result of the strong individualism of its economic development model. While other Alpine towns proposed a global management of this aspect from their initial conception (Avoriaz, Whistler Blackcomb, and Andermatt Swiss Alps), Verbier, with its piecemeal development, did not. It appears complicated to solve Verbier’s second-home issue based exclusively on solutions dependent on many private owners (investor plan). As shown in the Verbier sector master plan, to meet the new constraints of the Weber initiative, the commune concentrates mainly upon the remaining building plots available for public use. Today, while the supply of building land is shrinking, demand in the real estate sector is still very high. The commune is targeting a hotel program that complements the very low percentage of hotels (diversity plan). Of Verbier’s approximately 29,000 beds, only 1,250 are hotel beds (approximately 4.3 percent). Until 2013 Verbier had only 950 hotel beds, that is to say, the same number as in 1960, when the total number of beds was only 7,000:25 hotel-bed availability has changed very little in fifty years though the total number of beds has increased exponentially. In Verbier, the prevailing economic model is build to sell, not build to benefit the commune. This contributes to an Alpine gentrification that is gathering a wealthy sector of the population. Verbier lives by monetizing tourism, and by international investment, not simply by attracting people. Remember that for a pertinent analysis of the second-home issue, it is necessary to look at Verbier’s new agendas. Today, the town’s occupation can no longer be summarized, as in the 1960s, as based on the winter skiing season. This is of course an important attraction, but it is no longer the only one. Summer cultural activities together with new mountain lifestyles are emerging elements to consider as well. The commune of Bagnes has set itself the goal of having infrastructures operating ten months per year by 2035. 26

26 See Dumoulin 2010.

24 This estimation is based on information from the site www.verbier.ch and the local real estate market. These are estimated data and should be reviewed with the official community data as soon as available. 25 According to Barbier, Nomazy, and Veuve 1974, esp. illustration p. 4.2.

55

18 %

Building area within avalanche zone (blue)

20 %

Building area within flood zone (yellow)

3%

Building area within danger zone (red)

56 | Verbier

Natural dangers |

Avalanche danger

Flood danger

0

200 m

57

39 km of living hedges

55 ha

of land occupied by buildings and roads

58 | Verbier

Vegetation |

Forests

Pasture land

Artificial landscape

Golf course

0

200 m

59

59 km of embankments

93 km

of private retaining walls

300 m of level change

23 %

of building area with slopes > 35%

60 | Verbier

Topography | Slopes

18–35 %

35–50 %

> 50 %

0

200 m

61

± 2 000 Investors

62 | Verbier

Investors

0

200 m

63

4,9 % of public facilities

4,8 % of hotels

90,3 % of residences

64 | Verbier

Building Use Diversity

0

200 m

65

There are effectively several urban mountain lifestyles, which today manage to guarantee, thanks to exclusive events, an occupation of almost twelve months per year. While initially based on skiing, Verbier’s summer attendance is now equivalent, sometimes even higher. The Verbier Festival is a perfect example of a new agenda, created by an event combining culture and nature. Taking place from half July to early August, it provides in three weeks almost 50 percent of all hotel nights in Verbier from May to October. In 2013 the festival attracted 50,000 people and recorded more than 750,000 connections in 177 countries for the 30 concerts broadcast live on the streaming platform. 27 Along with this change, Verbier is also experiencing changes in the way of life. Although, as we have seen, its economy is mainly based on second homes, the town is now experiencing an increase in the number of permanent residents. Verbier is home to around 40 percent of the total population of the commune of Bagnes; 55 percent of the inhabitants are Swiss and 45 percent are foreigners. Several residents live in Geneva three days a week and in Verbier during the remaining four days. Others live seven months in London and five months in Verbier. Some traders and wealth managers have even made it their principal residence; via the Internet their work can be done in Verbier just as easily as in London. New facilities planned by the municipality and those built recently, such as the first international school in Bagnes in 2010, reveal changing demands resulting from the arrival of an increasing population. Several reports have been devoted to these changes, but there are no statistics on Verbier’s contemporary particularity, which considerably modifies the traditional view that defines it as a simple tourist site. 28 It is also necessary to question the integration of the local mountain population in this “international” evolution. Franz Weber’s initiative condemns the fact that excessive land prices no longer allow the indigenous population to live in their home villages, but it does not propose any solution to this problem. To integrate the local population, it could have imposed, for example, a minimum quota of housing to be provided for locals during the construction of a new tourist development, as has been done for some towns in the canton of Grisons. Verbier Today: The End of an Urban Cycle? The analysis of the different current drivers highlights Verbier’s artificiality and the point of no return inflicted by its urban development. Verbier is reaching its limit of sustainability: depletion of building plots, major

66 | Verbier

mobility problems, climate disruption, prohibition to build new second homes. Some argue that, contrary to those Alpine projects that were planned and “artificially injected” into virgin countryside, Verbier is justified because it has evolved naturally over the years. However Verbier’s evolution is not natural. As will be shown in the comparative summary of the different case studies, it is the model that inflicts the greatest damage on its natural environment. It is time to admit the damaging impact that the individual chalet has had on Verbier’s development. Must one therefore accept that Verbier’s urban cycle is coming to an end; should one suspend its urbanization, allowing the town to gradually become an urban wasteland? Because if Verbier does not rapidly propose an economic, legal, and social urban project that provides a radical and global long-term solution for these various problems, as opposed to past piecemeal development, the current urbanization will be unable to guarantee the village’s survival. Why not plan for dense habitation of Verbier’s remaining building plots as a last chance to resolve this lack of sustainability? Today more than ever, we witness a pivotal moment. We have the necessary vision to recognize the urban limits of the individual chalet’s low density, but we still have to define a countermodel for urbanization. The section “Densification Strategies” (pp. 196–229) will be dedicated to the search for a new Alpine archetype that combines densification and mobility. 27 According to a press release from the 20th Verbier Festival. 28 See in particular RTS info 2014. Les traders sont de plus en plus nombreux à fuir les capitales de la finance pour le calme des Alpes. [More and more traders prefer tranquility of the Alps to financial capitals].

ZERMATT Perfect Model of the Pedestrian-Oriented Alpine Town?

70

Public opinion often quotes Zermatt as the ideal counterexample to Verbier. Yet this town at the foot of the Matterhorn is actually built on a very similar land-use pattern. As in Verbier, Zermatt’s current major malfunctions are indicative of an urbanization that has attained its sustainable size limit. Although Zermatt has a better built density (0.61), its urban sprawl only stopped when it reached the limits imposed by its location (topography, natural hazards). These constraints, and no other land-use model, have limited its urbanization to a maximum width of 1 kilometer and to a length of 2.8 kilometers, inferior to the surface of Verbier (about 2 by 2.5 kilometers). Today, Zermatt is also reaching its size limit. The numerous road infrastructures of Zermatt are not adequate to cope with the various traffic flows. Private cars may be banned, but it is not a pedestrian city. Its size makes it impossible to walk everywhere because distances are too great. The use of mechanical means of transport is therefore essential. Moreover, as already pointed out in the 1970s by an EPFL study, Zermatt has excellent accessibility by train but did not initially define a traffic flow concept within its urbanization plan. 29 The mixture of different flows (pedestrians, taxis, buses, horse-drawn carriages, etc.) greatly disrupts walking. Zermatt, the emblem of the Alpine pedestrian city accessible only by train, is today subject to severe traffic congestion caused by the numerous flows of electric cars. An ATE study of mobility within fourteen ski resorts designates Zermatt as having the most sustainable transport in Switzerland, with Verbier ranked twelfth.30 The result is highly questionable because it is based on indices that do not account for traffic congestion, pedestrian disturbance, or delays while stationary. It merely describes Zermatt’s “green” transport without questioning its effectiveness. We simply say that Zermatt is the Swiss city with the most electric cars31, as if that were an ecological index, while denying the significant congestion of this Alpine city. That Zermatt is the Swiss city with the most leisure flights is not mentioned, while air travel constitutes significant noise and environmental pollution.32 It’s no coincidence that the authorities of this town and those of Verbier are both independently studying new efficient public transport systems that will avoid car congestion. The commune of Zermatt did in fact commission a group of specialists in 2007 to study the implementation of a new public transport system to unclog the central streets. Their report proposes a route on public areas beside the river.33 However, it is surprising to note that this new transport system has the same flaws as those noted for Verbier:

– It does not serve the entire urban area. – Its route is discontinuous and not connected to the Zermatt train terminal. – The new system does not take account of natural hazards (not shown on the map) while its route is mainly located in red flood zones. On the contrary, should we not conceive the new transport system in such a way as to simultaneously resolve electric car congestion, densification of the last available hectares, and security of those structures already built in the red avalanche zones? Which Alpine neotype, bringing together public transport, habitation, and an infrastructure for protection against natural hazards, could be grafted directly onto the existing ski resort and thus densify Zermatt in a durable manner? We will not detail the Zermatt analysis here because it doesn’t reveal any significant new advantages compared to our Verbier study. Instead, we will propose a composite approach, highlighting through maps and key figures the various saturation levels studied at Zermatt. The comparative synthesis given in the case (pp.  188–193 and comparative map) will show the disturbing similarities between Verbier and Zermatt, and refute conventional wisdom about Zermatt’s sustainability. 29 See Barbier, Nomazy, and Veuve 1974. 30 See ATE 2011. 31 According to information drawn from the Swiss 3-D atlas, https://www. atlasderschweiz.ch. 32 A helicopter causes an average noise of 90 decibels at 300 meters; a very highly trafficked road, an average of 70 decibels (information from the FOEN [Federal Office for the Environment]). 33 The 2007 detailed report is not available to the public, but the municipality of Zermatt has published a summary of the route (description) and the transport variants envisaged, in its official journal; see Commune de Zermatt 2007.

71

185 ha Building zones

1 135 360 m

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0,151

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0,61 Density

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Existing train route within avalanche zone (red)

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of pedestrian transport network to serve 1,135,360 m2 of habitable surface built

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AVORIAZ Innovative Integrated Ski Resort: New Prototype for Alpine Density and Mobility

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In view of the important growth of mass tourism in the 1950s, a consequence of 1936 legislation for paid holidays and, above all, the end of the Second World War, the French state became aware of the need for planned mountain urbanization. As with modern city architecture, Alpine architecture is confronted with the need for a dense urban prototype; one that is functional, profitable, and able to accommodate a large number of people in minimal space. The analogies with modern language confirm the common preoccupations: 1964 marks the birth of the CIAM, Commission Interministérielle d’Aménagement de la Montagne, and it is no coincidence that it takes the initials of the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne founded thirty-six years earlier. It should be noted, however, that its purpose is not exclusively to respond to a basic social need, as in the case of the postwar period, but also to plan the speculative requirements needed to benefit from a very lucrative winter sport tourism. CIAM defines a mountain-planning policy called the Snow Plan,34 based on the construction of third-generation ski resorts35 and also on the transport infrastructure necessary to serve them. These integrated resorts, artifacts dedicated to skiing, are artificially injected into almost virgin natural countryside, upward from an altitude of 1,800 meters. They are characterized by global real estate management – land management, architecture, financing, construction, operations, and marketing – led by a single promoter with the help of the state. It was in this context of economic performance, conducive to a strong mountain urbanization, that Avoriaz was born, a laboratory of ideas for town planning and financial management. The movement of pedestrians in this first car-free ski resort structured its general layout. Jacques Labro first defines the resort’s different internal traffic flows and then designs the emblematic architecture that we know so well.36 This resulted from extensive research into the relationship between structures and their natural context, that he describes as “the physical site and its atmosphere.” Unfortunately we too often classify Avoriaz as mimetic architecture, while its reality is somewhat different. Many publications have been devoted to this integrated ski resort. Our analysis, after taking note of all existing studies, aims to identify the missing points not yet studied in detail and which to us seem essential. We will only briefly describe the resort’s morphological evolution because it simply corresponds to the planned project’s construction stages within the originally planned perimeter. We focus instead on analysis of the urban plan and its innovative property management tools. We will then concentrate on the study of current issues.

fifty years without deviating from the initial philosophy. Today, however, Avoriaz has reached its viable size limit, which endangers its very perennity. We will present the extension project designed by Jacques Labro as an alternative to Avoriaz’s current saturation, as well as two projects by architectural students from EPFL that also address this issue.

Urban Development According to Initial Global Planning We can summarize the realization of Avoriaz as two main phases: from 1964 to 1994, the colonization of Alpine countryside (schematic 1, section 1) by construction of Jacques Labro’s entire master plan (schematics 2 to 5); and from 2011 to 2015, the densification within that construction, by implantation of new buildings not initially planned (schematic 6, section 2). While the twenty years between these two major stages have led to several renovations of buildings that had become obsolete (apartment size, material deterioration, insulation problems, comfort, etc.), they have changed neither the land use nor the built density of Avoriaz.37 34 The 6th Snow Plan initially provides for construction of 350,000 beds, although only 150,000 would be realized (Inspection générale de l’administration et al. 2010). The state defines sites at 1,800 meters above sea level; it exempts projects from existing local regulations, participates in their implementation and that of their transport infrastructure, including financial assistance. Note that Avoriaz has not been indexed by the Snow Plan; a private investor initially discovered the site’s potential. 35 The size and high density of the integrated ski stations allows a large number of beds to be grouped on a single site: La Plagne, 20,000 beds; Les Arcs 1800, 18,000 beds; Avoriaz, 18,000 beds; Flaine, a more modest 8,000 beds, etc. See in particular Lyon-Caen 2004, which summarizes the evolution of mountain colonization since the end of the nineteenth century. 36 Jacques Labro is the architect who designed the entire Avoriaz site from 1964 to the present day. While other architect associates, initially JeanJacques Orzini and Jean-Marc Roques or currently Simon Cloutier, have been part of his team and have contributed to Avoriaz’s planning phases, Labro is the only one to have followed the project from beginning to end. 37 However, these important renovations as they were the first indicators announcing the limit of the minimum habitat model imagined thirty years previously (p. 102).

Conceived in 1964 as a thirty-year prototype, the master plan was able to support development over 81

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Document 1: Ski domain plan, Vuarnet project (1961)

Until the 1960s, Avoriaz (formerly named Avoreaz) essentially comprised waterlogged infertile mountain land, occupying a virgin, south-facing plateau located above cloud height at an altitude of 1,800 meters, at the top of a steep cliff. During the winter season, lasting almost seven months a year, snow prohibits any road access at this altitude. This isolation is accentuated by the natural topography (section 1), separating the Avoriaz plateau from the inhabited Morzine Valley, located 800 meters below. The access difficulty and poor farming potential appear to explain why these lands were neglected and long protected from development. Management of the Alpine land also reflects this lack of interest to the private developer; it being entirely owned by the commune, hence available for public development, rather than belonging to private owners. This 88 | Avoriaz

situation would prove to be of major importance in considerably simplifying Avoriaz’s realization, allowing overall planning without having to face the many constraints due to the need for negotiation with several private owners. In 1961 Jean Vuarnet, an internationally renowned skier born in the Morzine Valley, demonstrated the true potential of Alpine skiing for Avoriaz, which he brought to fruition with a development project. In effect, the plan for the ski area, imagined by the Olympic champion and published in the review Le Ski (documents 1 and 2),38 shows that Avoriaz is ideally located at the heart of the region’s ski slopes, as well as at the center of the future Portes du Soleil domain.39 Transport infrastructure was the first driver of the Avoriaz development. It is interest-

Functional Traffic Flow Separation at a Car-Free Ski Resort

Document 2: Infrastructure photomontage. Vuarnet project (1961)

ing to see that this plan proposes a global mobility concept that jointly addresses both “countryside” and “town” mobility. The ski lifts are not only the link between Avoriaz and the top of the ski slopes, but also between Avoriaz and the inhabited valley floor. The choice of cable car transport is justified by the existing climatic constraints. It allows access to altitude of 1,800 meters from the valley in all weather and regardless of snow; access by road is initially set aside as it is too expensive and unsafe. This decisive choice defines from the outset the “green” mobility of Avoriaz. Jean Vuarnet already had the idea of a pedestrian-only resort, not only for access but also for internal journeys. In 1963 access by cable car marks the beginning of the plateau’s urbanization (schematic 2) with construction of the Avoriaz resort soon after. The land, initially publicly owned, was transferred to the private developer Gérard Brémond.40 In thirty years he financed the entire operation, and Jaques Labro, his principal architect, designed the master plan as well as the architecture of each building. The result transformed the modest Alpine fields into a ski town of 250,000 square meters of habitable surface, housing 18,000 beds. Schematics 3 to 5 show the different construction stages of Avoriaz and its three neighborhoods.

Labro’s master plan is not the first proposed for Avoriaz; there were in particular the projects of the architecture office Bertrand (1963). Bertrand’s initial project proposes a master plan based on the individual Savoyard chalet, served by private roads. Building locations don’t take the site’s natural features into account and offer no innovations to meet the needs of the moment, namely the creation of “ski machines” that can rationally accommodate thousands of skiers. The very low density of this plan provides only 6,000 beds for the entire site (three times fewer than the Labro project). At the request of the developer and in order to increase the number of beds, Bertrand proposes a second plan that simply increases density by replacing some chalets with buildings with no specific Alpine attributes. The interest of the Labro project lies in the proposal of original mountain buildings incorporating dense habitation. These are shaped by their environment and by the specific mobility requirements of a ski resort designed around pedestrian traffic, rather than simply adding standard urban buildings to the Alpine countryside. The comparison of the different habitation densities between the Bertrand projects and the elaborate Labro project (schematics 7 to 9) makes it possible to show the strengths of the latter; it achieves a density of 0.71 while that of the Bertrand projects is only 0.25. 38 For the full description, see Vuarnet et al. 1961. 39 The innovative idea of connecting the ski areas of two countries, the French around Avoriaz and the the Swiss around Champéry, is also the work of Jean Vuarnet. The first ski pass, which officially marks the birth of a new area called the Portes du Soleil, dates from the winter of 1969. This vast ski area now has about 650 km of descents. 40 Avoriaz is not the first integrated station but it is the first to be financed privately and not by the state (like La Pagne). Built almost parallel to Avoriaz, Flaine also benefits from private financing, that of the wealthy Éric Boissonnas.

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Schematic 7 to 9: Density samples Bertrand project 1, Bertrand project 2, and project by Labro et al.

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Document 3: Skier movement master plan, Labro et al. (1966)

Document 4: Schematic, prioritization of skier movement, Labro et al. (1966)

Just as with very densely built mountain villages, designed principally to conserve the surrounding land for farming, the land around Avoriaz is conserved for skiing. The idea of a car-free resort, which gives priority to skiing, is the basic concept that defines the size and layout of Labro’s plan. The outline of the Labro team’s master plan, published in 1966 (document 3), highlights the importance of skier movements (in blue) as a principle of land prioritization. Primary runs linking the different ski areas are the major elements of the plan. Enabling the flow of skiers, Avoriaz becomes the link that allows skiing without interruption. The ski lift locations derive from this, making it possible to travel up across the slope, thereby ensuring continuity of the route between the various local tracks and the surrounding ski domains. The location of the urbanization zones (in yellow) results from the layout of the local ski slopes. A second “layer” of traffic flow (in red) is devised to serve the different neighborhoods; a main network (dashed red line), which starts from the car park, passes through the activity center and

ends at the cable car station. This provides a link between the two opposite access points to Avoriaz while serving its different urban areas. Note that even if this axis is shown in red indicating car access, in reality it is reserved for sleighs pulled by reindeer, the emblem of this car-free ski resort.41 This first draft is still circumspect in its definition of routes but it already announces the modern intention of a functional separation of traffic flows. The schematic plan and section (document  4) published at the same time as this master plan makes it possible to understand the first intentions. We can distinguish a superposition of the different hierarchical flows according to the topography and according to a decrease in speeds: the main tracks that bypass the urban area provide access to the ski lifts connecting Avoriaz to the ski areas, while the secondary tracks allow direct access to the buildings by ski. 41 Even though the distance from one end to the other of Avoriaz is designed to be covered without difficulty on foot or on skis, the sleighs are an extra for transporting luggage, for elderly people, etc.

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Documents 5 to 7: Cross sections showing hierarchies of movement, Labro et al. (1966)

Document 8: Mass plan and development of Avoriaz 1800, Labro et al. (1974)

92 | Avoriaz

The sleigh route serves the interior of the resort. It is connected to the flow of skiers and pedestrians and also to the shops. Document 4 already shows the idea of covered pedestrian walkways, allowing movement around the ski resort while sheltered from bad weather. We will come back to this essential point several times. The flows of people are differentiated, but all are interconnected. Note that in the Labro project the cross-section drawing is an essential tool for defining flow organization. The different 1966 sketches (documents 5 to 7) show the importance of the sections as a principal research tool. The 1974 master plan (document 8) strengthens the first intentions and clearly defines three types of internal flow: flows of skiers on connecting tracks, sleigh tracks, and pedestrian traffic. A wide loop of trails around the Dromonts area, which widens over the Falaise district, allows one to reach the four ski domains and also to cross the resort center by ski. Specific enlargements of the tracks define places related to the resort’s public amenities (central square, des Mouilles, cable car station, etc.). The lifts provide the link between the different departure points but also serve the local neighborhood (intermediate stop of the district of Perchoir). Sleigh routes are positioned according to the buildings to be served and the topography. They allow easy movement for pedestrians inside Avoriaz (for example, when carrying suitcases, or going out at night without walking in the snow). The vocabulary used by the architect to name the resort’s routes reflects the predominance of skiing: “boulevard des skieurs,” “front de ski,” “ski enfants,” “départ skieurs,” etc.

those buildings that cross a steep slope. The 1970 plan (document 11) more clearly shows a desire for continuous pedestrian routes (hatched lines) notwithstanding the topography. But it’s above all the elevation section drawings (documents 9 and 10) that allow understanding of this idea, which is particularly relevant to the Essaveaux district, the steepest part of the site. Alternate public elevators and horizontal platforms make it easy to transcend this 70-meter climb. These devices create an artificial floor, raised above the natural soil level while punctually connected to it.42 Hence, pedestrians have two links with the ground, just as do the skiers, who use a second device (ski lift) for tackling the slope. Labro designs these catalysts for pedestrian displacement so as to be discernible on the facades, the buildings thereby participating in the presentation of public transportation. The Hotel des Hauts-Forts, built in 1967–68 (now converted into apartments), is the first building incorporating this idea of public pedestrian mobility (documents 12 and 13). The buildings are designed to accommodate the flow of their users. Avoriaz is characterized by a strong link between building density and pedestrian mobility, the one guaranteeing the viability of the other. 42 In addition to elevators and public footbridges, the 1969 project also includes additional ski lifts (next to documents 3 and 5 on the document 11, p. 95), not to easily access ski slope departures and arrivals but as devices allowing pedestrians to surmount the topography. These lifts are not retained in the final plan.

A pedestrian route, independent of skier movement, is designed to enable movement by foot across the entire resort. Avoriaz’s size is clearly not only determined by the area that the commune allocated for its construction, but also by the desire to define a viable size limit for pedestrians. The comparison of several integrated pedestrian ski resorts or complex contemporary cases makes it possible to determine the maximum viable length for pedestrian movement at approximately one kilometer. Avoriaz fits within this category, although its topography is an additional constraint for the pedestrian. While it’s possible to walk one kilometer on the flat, on a slope, the same distance can be difficult to cover, and the gradient can exceed 50 percent in the districts of Essaveaux, Alpages, or Perchoir. Of course it’s possible to use the sleigh runs for less steep slopes but the distance increases noticeably. To ensure the most direct and shortest pedestrian routes, Labro designs elements specific to Avoriaz that render these slopes easy for the pedestrian: public elevators, covered galleries, and interior routes or walkways. The 1974 plan shows the location of these elements, integrated within 93

Contextual Densities The design of a car-free ski resort therefore defines the urbanization size limit while at the same time ensuring a compact and dense development to answer the profitability demands of the promoter. Avoriaz is a significant example of new contextual density in the mountains. To describe Avoriaz as mimetic architecture imitating nature is reductive and, in our opinion, erroneous; this integrated resort is characterized by the integration of a high built density within a natural context and not by mere imitation of it. “Is it the resort that makes the landscape or the landscape that makes the resort?”43 Without doubt, at Avoriaz, the landscape makes the resort. Labro’s acknowledgment of this largely determined the architecture and the urbanism. However, Avoriaz’s strong contextual density, in its turn, transforms the landscape. The resort characterizes the site’s natural details: topography, snow, sunshine, winds, view, etc., which are thereby unveiled. In this way Avoriaz operates as a climate concentrator, reactive to the location. As of 1966, Labro comes up with the idea of several neighborhoods (initially five, then three) and differentiates them.44 He distinguishes three density types as a function of the natural context. Jean-François Lyon-Caen recalls the terms employed by the architect to characterize these three “villages,” notably as a function of their link with the topography: “Les Dromonts incorporated, Les Crozats strengthened, La Falaise displayed.”45 How did Labro succeed in integrating such built density within a natural context? The use of models was a fundamental project tool during Avoriaz’s conception – “the hand creates what the head conceives.”46 The vertical cross section, which, as seen, significantly structured the levels of movement, was also indispensable for defining localization and the unique form of each building. Their specific characteristics are not described here; the general inventory of the Patrimoine Culturel de Rhône-Alpes identifies the majority of structures at the site. The following discussion illustrates the characteristic architectural elements that link the built density to the natural environment and hence, allow one to experience different ways of living in the mountains.47 The Droments neighborhood was developed first. Even though the hilltop shape obscures the panoramic mountain view from some areas, this location has the advantage of being directly connected to the cable car. It is interesting to note that initially, accessibility took precedence over enhancement of the landscape; this results in a built density that is both original and introverted. The Dromonts’ structure defines the style and basic architectural principals of the entire resort, even if those principles are adapted to respond to each neighborhood’s particularities. 94 | Avoriaz

Documents 9 and 10: Cross sections showing pedestrian circulation, Labro et al. (1970)

Document 12: Site plan, Les Hauts-Forts building, Labro et al. (project 4, 1967)

The Dromonts occupy the greatest percentage (35 percent) of Avoriaz’s surface, at the lowest built density of 0.86 (ignoring the area of the central square). The Dromonts is the only neighborhood that includes individual chalets (apart from the existing new chalets at the Crozats) and compact municipal buildings. The Dromonts’ low built density is also explained by conservation of pine trees, which are found only in this neighborhood and occupy a part of the land. The 1966 schematics (document 18) set out the first principles for integration within the natural context, perfectly summarized by the original text: “[…] submit to the topography. Seek out exceptional views and exposure to sunlight. Protect against prevailing winds. Take advantage of snow and seasonal transformations.”48 While the search for light and views are common topics regarding town architecture, a

Document 11: Regional development study, Labro et al., 1970

Document 13: Public footbridge, Les Hauts Forts building 43 Philippe Bourdeau speaking on integrated ski resorts at the conference of the 5th Biennale Européenne de La Montagne, October 2013.

46 Said by Labro during a conference at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture of Grenoble, November 29, 2012.

44 According to the terms employed in the article appearing in L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, 1966.

47 Labro, J. in Recherche et architecture, 1970, p. 126.

45 Lyon-Caen 2012, see note 105.

48 Description taken from the Processus de l’étude in L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui (1966).

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Document 14: Facade, Hôtel des Dromonts, Labro et al., 1966

Document 15: Hotel des Dromonts, Labro et al. (1966)

desire for space, light, and views from one’s home is interpreted differently in the mountains. The altitude, topography, and orientation define the Alpine advantages specific to Avoriaz: the view of mountaintops, the vibrant light, the wind, and above all the influence of other environmental elements such as snow. The first published cross-section schematic of the Mélèzes building (document 19) summarizes these principles better than the accompanying plan schematic. The intense winter light appears to determine the maximum width for transverse buildings, 16 meters on average. The topography and the snow – defining the rapport between land and sky – are the two primordial natural elements that seem to dictate Avoriaz’s architecture. It is an architecture designed as a support to place the snow center stage, to retain it, giving form to this mobile layer that is present six months of the year at this altitude and which progressively melts in the spring. At Avoriaz, one lives surrounded by snow. This transformation of the landscape by Labro, which uses the climate’s characteristics, isn’t a romantic gesture but results from an Alpine desire to integrate – and also to camouflage a little  – the significant built density. The two principal tools for retaining snow

are the roof facade and the snow-bearing roof, the construction methods and slope of these elements being chosen to retain the snow covering for as long as possible. The Hotel des Dromonts (documents 14 and 15) is, and deservedly so, frequently cited as a representative example of an Avoriaz wooden roof facade.49 Nonetheless, here we prefer to focus our attention on the different elements of the Mélèzes building as the long form appears better able to explain the formal sequences of such a structure with regard to its relation to the land (documents 16 and 17).50 The Mélèzes building appears to spring from the snow, or rather to live in the snow. As a living element, the building mutates to acquire the context of its natural environment. The topography lends a supple and variable form to the snow, as does the built volume (documents 20 and 21). The

96 | Avoriaz

49 See particularly the entry for the Hotel des Dromonts in the Inventory of the Rhône-Alpes Heritage at http://patrimoine.rhonealpes.fr/dossier/hotel-de-voyageurs-dit-hoteldes-dromonts/50b013a9-5d1a-4fb1-b9ea-fac3ac1b395e. 50 Approximately 115 meters total length, Les Mélèzes was designed and built in two phases.

Document 16 : Les Mélèzes (2), project 7 cross section, Labro et al., 1967

Document 18 : Location schematic

Document 19: Cross section principle

Document 17 : Les Mélèzes (1), project 6 cross section, Labro et al., 1966

Document 20: Les Mélèzes building under snow

Document 21: Les Mélèzes building under snow

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Document 22: Snow-bearing roofs, Mont-Oya chalet

Document 23: Le Thuya building

snow covers the entire surface of the Mélèzes and the Hotel des Dromonts, leaving a white canvas with windows as the only visible openings. In response, the wooden exteriors of the other buildings present not volumes but roofs covered with snow. To express the predominance of the idea of living beneath a huge snow roof, Labro imagines different large continuous forms with many changes of level to accentuate the snow’s rhythmic variations in elevation. The Le Thuya building expresses this dramatization of the roof structure very well (document 23). For this mise-en-scène based on the presence of snow, it is important that the latter be kept cold to prevent its melting or turning into ice in contact with the warmer underlying structure. Labro therefore uses a porte-neige: a wooden frame, covered with wooden slats, is placed on a standard concrete roof (concrete slab, vapor barrier, insulation, waterproofing). Thanks to the outside air circulating in the empty space between the “real” roof and this wooden facing, the snow is insulated and thereby remains at ambient temperature. These two basic ideas are found in Avoriaz’s other two neighborhoods but are carefully modified to 98 | Avoriaz

adapt their different built densities to the characteristic natural environment of each. Construction of the Crozats neighborhood took place on a smaller area of land (28 percent of Avoriaz’s total surface); the built density of 1.1 is strongly influenced by the aggressive topography, the steepest of the site. Labro positions the buildings, while varying their height, as a function of the topography: the buildings on the mountainside are the tallest in Avoriaz. They can reach nineteen floors, while those that look onto the central square and accommodate the main public amenities are only two floors high to accord with the human scale of a pedestrian. New types of tall buildings appear perpendicular to the slope like Le Snow or Multivacances but also long and slender buildings, like Les Intrets and Les Fontaines Blanches, of a length greater than 200 meters for a depth which can be as little as 10 meters. The Falaises neighborhood is characterized by a softer topography but above all by its imposing position overlooking the end of a chain of cliffs. The ground surface occupied by the built zone is the smallest at Avoriaz (24  percent) but it has a high

Document 24: Roofs of La Falaise quarter

built density of 1 (ignoring the floor area occupied by building services). The height of the buildings is greater toward the cliff edge, up to fifteen floors. The Saskia building is representative of this neighborhood. These three neighborhoods are grouped around the central square, home to children’s skiing in winter and overlooked by the other resort amenities, including shops and restaurants. This communal public space occupies a large area, equivalent to 13 percent of Avoriaz’s total surface. In reality its location is determined by ground conditions; because of the topography it naturally retains water. It is therefore the wettest area of the resort and the least suitable for urbanization. It should be noted that holistic planning has enabled the definition of Avoriaz’s zones as entities in themselves.

its viability for almost fifty years. The promoter’s marketing and management of real estate (the Festival du film Fantastique, the Pierre et Vacances timeshare specialist, etc.) have largely contributed to this success.51 Unlike Verbier, which mainly consists of nonrented second homes, the Avoriaz developer defines different types of real estate marketing that guarantee occupied beds (document 25). Nonetheless, even if Avoriaz is often associated with the parahotel business (rental of serviced apartments), a model guaranteeing occupied beds, we see today that the initial management models are obsolete. Avoriaz is also strongly concerned with the issue of second homes. 51 See in particular Puthod and Thévenard-Puthod 2011, which partially covers this subject.

In parallel to Labro’s master plan, Avoriaz’s various innovative management systems, invented and controlled by a sole promoter, have enabled construction finance for the entire resort and ensured 99

Individual owner Rental management with lease Rental management without lease No rental management Multiple owner Hotel Staff residences Existing buildings Services / Miscellaneous

Document 25: Modes of real estate commercialization from 1965 to 1994, Mopty 2015

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Document 26: P.L.U (Local urban plan), commune of Morzine-Avoriaz (2014)

Avoriaz Today Reaches Its Size Limit The built density of Avoriaz’s urban model has made it possible to control its hold on the landscape for fifty years without exceeding the originally designated perimeter. However, despite better urban performance, it is interesting to note that today we are witnessing a pivotal period where problems confronting the spread model also concern the compact model: limit of extension, influence on mobility, impact on nature, and obsolescence of the property management model. As shown in the local urban plan (document 26), Avoriaz has reached its critical size. Today, the goal is no longer, as in the 1960s, to design an artifact in virgin countryside, a functional prototype designed solely for skiing and designed to last thirty years. It is rather to intervene in an existing urban model, initially projected as a finite entity and whose design did not envisage possible future growth or flexibility of the master plan.

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Critical Size Overflow: Densification or Extension? To cope with the decline in attendance in the 1990s, Brémond began refurbishment of some existing buildings; the size and comfort of the apartments no longer meet the requirements of today’s customers.52 We will not dwell on the architectural detail of the refurbishments undertaken, but it is important to mention them, as they are the first sign of obsolescence of the initial urban model. The problem becomes particularly apparent as Brémond plans to build an additional 55,000 square meters to recover the beds lost by combining existing apartments into larger units and completing the resort’s offer with high-end apartments. In response, Labro proposes a project combining Avoriaz’s densification and expansion by the creation of an autonomous satellite resort. In this first study of 2003–4, the architect suggests densifying Avoriaz by building 29,000 square meters of additional surface.53 The program plans to distribute this work over the three neighborhoods taking into account their densities and characteristics. Labro considers this densification essential to guarantee the viability of the resort without endangering its urban base. This densification variant does not match the additional surface requested by the developer. Labro then proposes the missing 47 percent (26,000 square meters) as a new ski resort called Joux-Verte, located about 800 meters from Avoriaz’s northwest entrance. This would consist mainly of individual chalets and some low-rise apartment buildings. If the size of the new resort (about 700 meters long) allows adoption of some of the Avoriaz urban principles, such as pedestrian mobility or skier circulation within the resort, these first sketches testify to a much less contextual urban plan than the original – the Joux-Verte project could exist elsewhere, while this is not the case of Avoriaz. Regardless of the Joux-Verte plan, which could be further refined, it’s the very idea of a satellite resort that poses a problem. The proposal for a new resort contradicts the very principles of Avoriaz, especially its compact form, which allows a dense urbanization and thereby frees up the surrounding countryside, including the ski slopes. While Avoriaz is born of urban innovations unique to their time, the idea of a satellite resort is on the contrary a standard colonizing proposition that could date from the 1960s or 1970s when land preservation was not yet a planning concern. Indeed, many projects of that era care nothing for the consequences of expansion across the landscape; one imagines a base resort, which ends up reaching its size limit, when according to the needs of the market, a second is built elsewhere, then a third and so on, with a connecting road network for cars. The reality is, of course, more complex: 102 | Avoriaz

there are integrated resorts like Whistler Blackcomb whose extension was anticipated and planned from the design stage. Labro doesn’t, at any time, mention the interplay between Avoriaz and the new satellite ski resort, which he considers autonomous. But how can one imagine that each would remain isolated and separately managed? Their activities will clearly generate movement between the two. The project doesn’t include any thoughts on the need for public transport, while the distances to be covered are too great for a pedestrian. There is a glaring contradiction between internal pedestrian mobility over a maximum of 1,000 meters as the basis for the resort’s actual layout and mobility between the two centers, which boils down to using the existing road. In fact, Labro’s extension project will not be retained; only the densification within Avoriaz will actually be  realized. At the promoter’s request, Labro proposes a second, denser variant, adding 40,000 square meters (2,200 beds) built from 2011 to 2015, or 16 percent of the total existing area. In 2014 the size of Avoriaz reaches 290,000 square meters. The density plan shows the total construction with the new buildings. In a filmed interview, the architect states that the new buildings, in spite of a higher density than that envisaged by the first variant, integrate relatively well in the existing neighborhoods.54 We feel rather less enthusiasm for the constructed variant; it is as if Avoriaz’s strength – its built density – had become incidental to the project. The architect also believes that the extension will probably be built, prolonging the idea that further densifying the resort appears to be already excluded. However, if the recent densification of Avoriaz can meet the current demand, in a few decades the resort will surely be confronted once again by the necessity of enlargement. Is it still acceptable today to imagine the further development of an integrated ski resort by simple multiplication of the basic model a few meters further away or should we instead study densification strategies for the existing site? Should one conclude that Avoriaz’s life cycle has reached its end or is it still possible to extend it? The projects of two EPFL postgraduate students, François Bianco and Timoté Mopty, try to answer this problem and show that there is scope for densification within Avoriaz before its encroachment into the surrounding landscape.55 While Labro defines the current density as maximum, Bianco’s project adds 15,000  square meters of built surface, while at the same time preserving Avoriaz’s qualities and

Document 27: Extension project at Avoriaz, Labro et al. (2003–4)

maintaining the resort’s current size. This is essential because any expansion of the resort’s 1-kilometer base has important implications for pedestrian mobility and hence for the very viability of the resort.

52 See Mopty 2015, p. 159, which contains a map that summarizes the restored and refurbished buildings. 53 The data cited here concerning the number of beds and areas of the Avoriaz extension project are taken from Lyon-Caen 2012, p. 70–71. 54 Labro (2014). Architecture Challenged by the Site: Jacques Labro at Avoriaz, In Situ, revue des Patrimoines, interview undertaken by Laroche, C., researcher at the Service du Patrimoine et de l’Inventaire, Aquitaine region. 55 For details, see http://master-architecture.epfl.ch/page-114256-fr.html (François Bianco) or Bianco 2014; and http://master-architecture.epfl.ch/ page-124053-fr.html (Timoté Mopty) or Mopty 2015.

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Critical Size and Feasibility of Pedestrian Mobility The Avoriaz extension is, of course, influenced in part by topographic boundaries and natural hazards, but it is mainly determined by a strong interdependence between its size and the feasibility of pedestrian mobility. While the further spread of a resort served mainly by car transport does not fundamentally change the means of mobility, in a resort designed around walking, the entirety of its operation is thrown into question. Note that while in Labro’s initial project the main pedestrian mobility also includes skiing, by pedestrian mobility we specifically mean walking, as that dictates the resort’s maximum size. The recent expansion of the Falaise neighborhood, called the Amara, indicates the limit for pedestrian displacements. Located at the periphery, almost off station, it requires a 300-meter extension of the network. The total length of Avoriaz is therefore increased to 1.3 kilometers. While this extension is easily covered on skis, walking is already a problem: the distance is too long; it imposes an increased use of snowmobiles (the resort’s motorized “public” transport).56 Today, the number of these additional trips is still modest but the disadvantages are already being felt (noise, traffic conflicts with pedestrians, etc.). Note that the mobility between Amara and the rest of the resort seems to have been voluntarily limited by implementation of a private program specific to the neighborhood. The pedestrian example of Zermatt has clearly shown that beyond a limited size, a town must plan the different traffic flows to prevent them from causing congestion. Any project for future expansion of Avoriaz’s current built area must study the impact on mobility in parallel. In addition to the fundamental issue of maintaining the initial 1-kilometer size limit, which has been able to contain internal flow variations for almost fifty years, it is important to stress that in 2011, before the extension of the Amara, Avoriaz was already facing two major mobility problems within the resort’s core. Today the elevators and public walkways, essential for crossing the resort on foot, are neglected and poorly maintained. Their obsolescence endangers mobility and gives a negative image of these spaces, so characteristic of the resort’s architecture. Despite the fact that the commune has been responsible for the renovation and maintenance of these public facilities since 1992, escalators or elevators still fail or are simply closed.57 Indeed, this infrastructure is out of service during a third of the year, including the chairlifts connecting them with the surrounding landscape, and above all, with the new cable car, the only public transport providing access to the resort. 104 | Avoriaz

Hence the resort’s local and access transport is significantly affected. In consequence, notwithstanding the potential for pedestrian mobility and the efficient connection with the valley by public transport, resort access is mainly by car. This results in a remarkable ambiguity between the resort’s internal and access mobility. In the last five years, for example, the resort has built a new high-performance cable car, which favors access by public transport. However, paradoxically the new Amara buildings are directly connected to the road network by the resort’s only new private underground parking, thereby allowing residents to arrive exclusively by car. Nonetheless, the cable car is an important mobility asset. To encourage its use, the project even plans to extend the current Avoriaz-Prodains route to Morzine, to allow direct access from the larger ski resort and thus rendering it closer to Morzine, Thonon, Geneva, and Geneva’s airport. Today however, no “green” public transport connects Morzine to neighboring towns, with buses providing the only connection by road. Movement on foot within the resort, originally planned as a simple substitute for ski mobility, is now a key sustainability issue for Avoriaz. Access by ski is a rational and natural principle in a ski resort originally designed only for the winter season, but today it is no longer feasible to rely on snow for mobility. Climate change and the search for a diversification of use necessarily require the efficiency of walking for travel around Avoriaz. Climate and Obsolescence of Ski Mobility Despite a growing inconsistency, skiing remains the main internal means of mobility. Downhill, the skiers can access the resort faster than the walkers. Going uphill, the skier, like the pedestrian, depends on mechanical transport. However, movement by ski is seriously under threat due to climate change. While in 1960, the Avoriaz winter lasted almost seven months and snow was abundant, today the season lasts barely five months, and the snow, unreliable because of global warming, no longer guarantees apartment-to-ski-trail mobility. It happens, even in midwinter at 1,800 meters, that some of the resort’s internal ski trails lack snow. It is no longer possible to ski across the resort and directly reach the main ski trails (document 28 and the map of ski trails). In winter this route is sometimes accomplished on skis and sometimes on foot, carrying skis to add to the difficulty. It is not only a question of guaranteeing, as elsewhere, snow conditions for skiing; in Avoriaz, the consequences of climate change also put into question mobility across the whole resort, and consequently, affects its viability. Today the mobility

of Avoriaz lives and dies according to the climate. Even if altitude reduces the effect of global warming when compared to lower resorts, their viability is paradoxically less dependent on climate than is that of Avoriaz. It is thus essential to plan a new internal mobility system allowing continuous movement both with snow and with its gradual disappearance.

Avoriaz could easily have extended to the northwest, where the land is flat and out of the danger zones. In reality, the plan of natural hazards shows that these have had relatively little impact on the built limits of Avoriaz. Only the Crozats neighborhood is at risk, hence a concrete avalanche protection wall is included at the northern end of its new buildings.

The lack of snow not only raises the incipient obsolescence of mobility by ski but also strongly influences the definition of public spaces. Originally, during winter in the 1960s, everything was beautiful: a single white carpet covered the surface; all was continuous, uniform, and without limits. Even with different winter activities (toboggan runs, snow parks, beginner’s ski trails, internal tracks, etc.), they all took place against the same white background. This perfect image of a surface untouched by man, from where the architecture appears to naturally spring, deteriorates with the melting snow. During certain winter periods the activities on the central public space are already disrupted by lack of snow; without artificial snow their existence is sometimes impossible. With the change of season, melting of this white carpet is accelerated, and the single public space is subdivided into a multitude of less attractive spaces (document 28). In the off season, it is often unusable and totally abandoned (mud, weeds, etc.). The restoration of this central public space, designed for use during four seasons and not only in winter, should be the subject of an urban and landscape study. Yet, to this day, except for a project led by a student from EPFL, no other analysis has been carried out that tackles this problem.58

Remember that the altitude difference between the existing village of Morzine and Avoriaz is 800 meters; This difference in altitude explains the temperature differences that are generally less pronounced between a ski resort and its host settlement; the air at Avoriaz is cooler. In summer, for example, it is seven degrees Celsius cooler than Morzine, an asset that, with the help of global warming, should attract more and more residents seeking a fresh Alpine climate. So although the resort is easily accessible by the public cable car and thus is easy to get to, Avoriaz struggles to define a year-round occupation. 56 A transport study was mandated by the Commune of Morzine (2014) to mitigate these emerging issues, but pedestrian circulation at Avoriaz is already endangered. 57 See the theoretical statement in Mopty 2015, esp. pp. 58–65. His analysis details the significant maintenance costs that a functioning pedestrian station requires for a seasonal operation. 58 Mopty 2015. The student’s project presents the interesting idea of focusing on open spaces rather than on built areas for solutions to Avoriaz’s current problems.

Note, moreover, that the soil between buildings is of Alpine quality: abundant grass and flowers grow naturally, according to altitude, changing form and color with the seasons. Above all, the verdant ground of Avoriaz is a public space. One can circulate freely within the resort, even between the private chalets of Dromonts. In other Alpine locations, Verbier for example, hedges and other devices privatize nature, rendering it artificial; the true countryside doesn’t exist there. The green space of Avoriaz is natural, and it extends from within the resort to the surrounding Alpine landscape. The land is verdant and a little stony; the singular topography highlights the rocky cliffs, the unique and recognizable landscape of the resort. The limit of extension is partly defined by topographical limits and natural risks but Avoriaz’s size limit is mainly determined, as we’ve seen, by the built area – pedestrian mobility. The steep topography of the cliffs has certainly limited extending urbanization to the south, or to the Crozats neighborhood in the north. However, 105

41 ha Building zones

290 000 m

2

Habitable surface built

0,160

Floor area ratio (FAR)

0,71 Density

106 | Avoriaz

Densities | Building heights (floors)

2-3

4

5

6

7-10 10-15 >16

0

200 m

107

Discontinuity of ski trails within Avoriaz’s boundary

108 | Avoriaz

Ski trail network

0

200 m

109

0,6 km

of road network to serve 290,000 m2 of habitable surface built

1 km

of maximum walking distance

110 | Avoriaz

Road network

|

Automobile

Pedestrian

0

200 m

111

Time Limit of the Real Estate Management Model Initially conceived as a holiday resort for skiers, today Avoriaz experiences real estate management problems in addition to urban dysfunction. A comparison of initial management methods with today’s, and with those planned for the future, clearly shows their inefficiency to solve the current problem of unoccupied beds (document 29). The initial ownership leases allow Pierre & Vacances, in the owner’s absence, to rent out a proportion of the resort’s accommodation, thus guaranteeing increased occupation of the apartments. However, at the end of the nine-year contractual period, the owners almost always refuse to renew the clause allowing this rental management. During construction of the new buildings in 2011 Brémond became aware of the need for a form of lease allowing him to manage the long-term rental, not only for reasons of profitability but also to ensure increased resort occupancy. He derives “the full ownership with permanent rental management” version, imposing a lease of indefinite duration.59 While this revision is an interesting business tool allowing the efficient rental of empty beds, it unfortunately only applies to the nine new buildings. Contrary to the image conveyed by some media, Avoriaz does not, in general, represent a model that avoids unoccupied beds. On a total habitable surface of 290,000 square meters, about 65 percent of beds are unoccupied. It is surprising to note that a model like Avoriaz, initially based on the rental of beds, will be more affected by the problem of empty beds than a resort built from the outset on the model of nonrented private second homes such as Verbier. Moreover, Avoriaz’s seasonal dependency further accentuates the gravity of the situation. A resort completely closed for six months a year, inhabited by less than fifty permanent residents but hosting up to 18,000 seasonal visitors in winter, is no longer an economic and socially sustainable urban model. Even today, winter is the dominant period. During spring and autumn, occupation levels are close to zero. During these transitional seasons, mobility inside the resort is no longer pedestrian: trucks and other vehicles for construction or maintenance of buildings are much in evidence, degrading the quality of life by noise and air pollution. It is not surprising that the few permanent inhabitants claim to live there by obligation, in a deserted and noisy location, with poor quality of life during these months. All resort promotion is designed to guarantee winter and summer occupation with nothing to encourage year-round occupation. Nonetheless, Avoriaz’s size and facilities could constitute an active town, inhabited all year round. It will be interesting to see, in the next chap112 | Avoriaz

ter, that a mountain resort like Whistler Blackcomb, which follows urban principles apparently similar to those of Avoriaz (size, principle of pedestrian mobility inside the resort, etc.), is very different in its real estate management and seasonal life. Whistler Blackcomb or Mont-Tremblant, for example, manage to guarantee occupation for almost twelve months, with summer attendance equal to, or even higher than, winter thanks to the offer of exclusive events throughout the year and a mountain-style mobility. 59 It is the same model as the “full ownership with leasehold management” format previously used, but instead of a nine-year lease, renewable or not, requiring the owner, in his absence, to entrust the property to Pierre & Vacances, the new version stipulates an indefinite duration and cannot be interrupted without indemnities and other consequences on the property.

Document 28: Variations in ground conditions according to the seasons, commune of Morzine-Avoriaz (2014)

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Individual owner Permanent rental management Rental management with lease Rental management without lease No rental management Multiple owner Hotel Staff residences Services / Miscellaneous

Document 29: Modes of property commercialization (initial, actual, and future), Mopty (EPFL 2015)

114 | Avoriaz

Avoriaz Today: The End of an Urban Cycle? The global planning of Avoriaz and the compact nature of its urban model have allowed control of its presence in the landscape for fifty years. The unique transport system of this first integrated pedestrian resort, exclusively designed for skiing, derived a new built density for mountain developments, the viability of one directly dependent on the size limit of the other. Avoriaz is a contextual artifact that arises from the symbiosis between an Alpine prototype, a functional theoretical model, and the natural context. The comparative synthesis will show that this planned artifact is much less artificial than the individual chalet model, so often defined as “natural.” However, while Avoriaz has ensured a more rational and less aggressive occupation of the land, it is now confronted, similarly to certain Alpine towns, with numerous urban, economic, and social dysfunctions. The initial project driver, based on the link between pedestrian mobility and urban area, as well the interdependence of pedestrian mobility on seasonal climate, is now the resort’s main weakness. We deliberately kept the 1960s term ski resort to define Avoriaz today, because the focus is still very much on winter sports. The resort has yet to acquire the year-round agenda necessary for its description as a town. Climate change and the search for new raisons d’être confirm the fragility of this exclusively winter resort, with the high number of unoccupied beds revealing the limits of the economic model. Should we conclude that the life cycle of Avoriaz is at an end? Should we let it gradually die, become a tourist wasteland, and build a new satellite resort as proposed by Labro’s latest extension project? Alternatively, should not we imagine densification strategies to prolong Avoriaz’s sustainability, as suggested by certain projects?

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Continuity of virgin land within Avoriaz border Entirely accessible public land not enclosed by private barriers

116 | Avoriaz

Vegetation |

Forests

Pasture land

Artificial landscape

Golf course

0

200 m

117

6%

Building area within avalanche zones (red)

118 | Avoriaz

Natural dangers |

Avalanche danger

Flood danger

0

200 m

119

16,5 % of public facilities

2% of hotels

81,5 % of residences

120 | Avoriaz

Building Use Diversity

0

200 m

121

WHISTLER BLACKCOMB Planned Expansion of an Integrated Resort at Its Size Limit

124 | Whistler Blackcomb

The case of Avoriaz, which as we’ve shown constitutes a counterexample to Verbier, has by contrast made it possible to highlight the weaknesses of urban sprawl while revealing the limits of a compact development. If the urbanization size is defined and planned to ensure pedestrian-only mobility, we have seen that this positive quality can become a problem; an increase of the maximum journey length beyond 1 kilometer jeopardizes the viability of the total system. Whistler Blackcomb, an emblematic model of a compact town, anticipated this major problem from conception by defining a basic pedestrian nucleus (Whistler) and the future need for extension through the simultaneous planning of a second nucleus (Blackcomb) presenting the same urban and pedestrian characteristics. We will see that this strategy preserves the qualities of the compact town without eventual expansion jeopardizing the internal relationship between size and mobility. To date, the two cores Whistler and Blackcomb still guarantee good urban functionality. In addition, unlike the Avoriaz station that closes six months a year, this Canadian city provides an economic model that manages to ensure year-round occupancy. However, we will show that it is not enough to conceive sustainable prototypes to create a sustainable town: the subsequent unplanned urban development that took place around the two compact cores conflicts with their built density and pedestrian mobility, causing urban sprawl and alarming road congestion. We will not detail the analysis of the core’s urban plan here but offer a summary highlighting its characteristics.60

Initial Global Planning According to the Principles of a Car-Free Town: Interdependence between Size, Density, and Pedestrian Mobility Construction in 1965 of the first ski lifts and of the Sea-to-Sky Highway 99 marks the beginning of the Whistler Blackcomb boom.61 The master plan drawn by the architect Eldon Back proposes a new integrated resort directly grafted onto this transport infrastructure (schematic 1). The good accessibility, from Vancouver in around two hours, favors the automobile from the outset as the main means of transportation. Nevertheless, even if access is by car, the new resort is designed to be car-free. Recall the strong link between the urbanization size limit and the optimum walking distance: the length of Whist-

ler and of Blackcomb confirms a key point made in the analysis of Avoriaz, namely that the walking distance should not exceed 1 kilometer. The Whistler Plan is based on a central pedestrian artery, framed by buildings and delimited at both ends by a large square (document 1). The cross-section drawing (document 2) summarizes the urban principles that characterize this route. Note the clear separation between the different flows; in the central pedestrian street the walker never encounters a car, not even visually. Car flows are directly channeled from the road network surrounding the urban center to the underground parking garage of each building, thus freeing the resort for exclusively pedestrian traffic. The width of the central artery and the shape of the buildings surrounding it are designed to ensure adequate sunshine despite the high building density. All along this path, the master plan places public amenities at ground-floor level in order to provide permanent animation along with a continuous arcade that protects the pedestrian from bad weather. From its conception, the core of Whistler was designed to be a finite entity, its size determined by the maximum walking distance. Conscious that the rigidity of this plan doesn’t allow for future extension, the architect plans at the same time the creation of Blackcomb, a second core (schematic 2). It is located so as to coincide, together with Whistler, with the access point of the region’s two main ski domains.62 Of course, Blackcomb’s position is also explained by natural constraints; it is located on protected land and adjoins the flood hazard zone. This second core reproduces the same urban principles as Whistler, but on a smaller scale (the pedestrian route extends over 750 meters instead of 1 kilometer). This reserve of 250 meters in walkway length is not accidental; it provides the pedestrian connection between the two cores, as an extension of their internal pedestrian paths, without exceeding the 1-kilometer limit. Note, however, that this maximum length is essentially designed for access to the ski trails: indeed, the distance from the east end of 60 The main Whistler core is designed according to the characteristics of a pedestrian resort whose principles we have already seen from the Avoriaz analysis. 61 Although the area had been served by the railway since 1914, the urban development brought about by this infrastructure was limited to a few lodges established along the lakesides to accommodate summer vacationers or amateur fishermen, and some industries exploiting mining and timber. 62 Since 2008 the mountain peaks of the two ski areas are directly connected by the Peak to Peak cable car, which overflies the approximately 4-kilometer-wide valley without any ground support. This facility, which has the longest span in the world, offers an unprecedented view of the natural landscape and is today an attraction in itself.

125

Document 1: Whistler Blackcomb plan (main pedestrian routes shown by dashed orange line), Ecosign (2013)

Document 2: Typical cross section showing either side of the main footpath, Ecosign (2013)

Cross section 1 (2014) 126 | Whistler Blackcomb

0

500 m

Blackcomb to the start of Whistler cable car does not exceed 1 kilometer and is easily made on foot, as is the distance from the west end of Whistler from the Blackcomb cable car. Beyond these distances – for example, to go from the end of one core to that of the other – the pedestrian benefits from a means of mechanical transport. The project provides a free bus service, rather than paid parking, to dissuade people from using a car to go from one nucleus to the other. Thus Whistler Blackcomb provides an element of response by proposing the idea of a compact town composed of two urban cores connected by pedestrian pathways and public transport. This system works as such, but unfortunately still depends on car transport. Therefore, if the road network – used by bus and car – is saturated, the public transport connection between the two cores is no longer fluid. Even though a cable car connects Whistler to the heights of Blackcomb, thereby providing an alternative link between the two cores, it is just a stop on a route designed to provide access to the ski slopes. This idea would however allow a connection between several pedestrian gathering points that is independent of road traffic. Before showing how the urban model of the two initial cores is threatened by the extensive sprawl that subsequently occurred, we first summarize the Whistler Blackcomb economic model that today guarantees occupation during all four seasons. An Economic Model Designed for Year-Round Occupation Economists are often interested in Whistler Blackcomb because even though it is built on publicly owned land, like 90 percent of American resorts, it is a unique case of successful funding between three levels of government (federal, provincial, and municipal).63 We’ll not dwell on the details of this organization but rather summarize how Whistler Blackcomb manages to function as a real town with year-round habitation. The zone plan and the regulation governing the two initial cores are not limited to defining urban and mobility principles but also in imposing an economic management model. By legal clauses integrated into the real estate contracts (sales, exploitation, etc.), the projected developments are required to include hotels, “condotels,” or condominiums.64 Nonrented second homes are not permitted in order to avoid vacant beds in a center seeking year-round activity. As the sale is subject to these legal constraints from the outset, it is commonly accepted that second homes are rented to ensure full occupancy. Unlike Lex Weber, which simply prohibits the economic model of

second homes without questioning in parallel the built density and mobility, the Whistler Blackcomb plan imposes three major interdependent factors from its conception: high built density, pedestrian mobility, and an economic model guaranteeing occupied beds.65 The project’s business model is not limited to this definition of housing stock management. It proposes particular strategies that succeed in attracting more than two million visitors throughout the year, 50 percent in winter (November to June) and 50 percent in summer (from June to November), with ever increasing attendance. Both the proximity of the highway between Vancouver and Whistler Blackcomb and the mountain town’s size and diversity allow it to group activities capable of achieving this attendance. Skiing remains one of the main attractions today; the ski area is the largest in North America, not counting the off-piste ski domain Freeride, which is twice the size. 63 According to data from Paul Mathews (Ecosign) gathered by Laurent Vanat (2006). 64 The condominium here refers to a second home, located in a rental building, that the owner must compulsorily rent through a specialized agency when it’s not occupied. The condotel is a condominium managed directly by the hotel: the owners enjoy all hotel services while being at home. The standard sales contract in the Whistler Center area forces the owner to occupy the property for 28 days in summer and 28 days in winter, the property being rented for the rest of the year. Unlike the French model of compact housing, the mountain apartments of the American model are as spacious as city apartments (about 45 square meters per person). 65 The Whistler Blackcomb buildings have a legal obligation to provide basement parking for each building so that all owners have a dedicated parking space and hence do not park in an uncontrolled manner. The land surface within the core areas is thus exclusively reserved for pedestrian movement, car traffic being prohibited.

127

128 | Whistler Blackcomb

Schematics 1 to 3 0

300 m

129

130 | Whistler Blackcomb

Schematic 4 0

1 000 m

131

The many other snow-related activities include: forest skiing, heli-skiing, cross-country skiing around the lakes, snowscout, foxski, tobogganing, bobsleigh, dog sleigh, snowmobile riding, and rock climbing. In summer, the most renowned bike park in the world due to its size and infrastructure (about 120 kilometers of cycle trails) attracts more than 125,000 riders. But Whistler Blackcomb offers many other outdoor activities: hiking (about 40  kilometers of paved trails) horseback riding, golf, adventure trails, wildlife watching (bears), summer tobogganing, climbing, freefall, zip-lining, wild salmon fishing, rafting, swimming, boating, kayaking, etc. Other activities such as the Alpine coaster, zorb, thrill kart, or hot springs can also be enjoyed all year round, not to mention the famous Blackcomb Glacier skiing, which brings together many ski and freestyle snowboarding camps. Urban activities complement these mountain-related recreation programs. These include many festivals such as the Crankworx Festival, the Telus Festival, and the Bulleit Bourbon Canadian National BBQ Championships to name but a few, but also language classes, lecture programs, yoga classes, etc. These events reinvent themselves to meet the expectations that have evolved over about forty years; the town’s website lists all activities monthly.66 It is interesting to note that from January to December Whistler Blackcomb proposes original events that attract visitors all year long. This permanent animation guarantees profitability of the operator’s facilities, equipment, and services (ski lifts, cinemas, swimming pools, boutiques, shops, etc.).67 Thus today, the initially planned urban and economic model still appears to guarantee Whistler Blackcomb’s viability. Is this mountain town therefore an exemplary model, unaffected, unlike Verbier, Zermatt, or Avoriaz, by the critical size of urbanization and the various saturation levels that result? Our analysis reveals that today, Whistler Blackcomb is also reaching its critical size. It is not a direct consequence of the viability of the two compact cores themselves but rather the result of serious problems caused by the uncontrolled urbanization that has occurred around them (schematic 3). Far from the initial image of two urban cores surrounded by a vast expanse of virgin nature; they are faced instead with individual lodges, noisy and polluted roads, and artificial landscapes that now characterize this mountain destination.

132 | Whistler Blackcomb

Barely Controlled Urban Sprawl: Whistler Blackcomb Today, the End of an Urban Cycle? It is interesting to note that all Whistler Blackcomb’s tourism plans deny the spreading development around the two original cores; these areas of private homes, served by car, are represented as forested areas, occupied only by pine trees and trails. The schematic plan 4 shows the real influence of urban sprawl. Although the initial project was compact enough to use only 59 hectares of land (Whistler, 47 hectares and Blackcomb, 12 hectares) and preserve the surrounding countryside, today 3,235 hectares are occupied by urban sprawl across the entire valley. Above all, as revealed by new land-use plans recently established by the authorities, this unplanned expansion is causing concern.68 These documents are intended to define limits to the resort’s growth and to address the serious dysfunction that it causes. The plans determine a limiting perimeter of urbanization, within which a reserve for future residential zones is predefined. The plans of our analysis summarize the strong contradiction that exists between the two components of the current town; the very foundations of the compact town are today canceled out by those of the spreading town. The map of built densities shows that the Whistler core has a density of 1.09 and that of Blackcomb is 2.39, while that of the surrounding area does not exceed 0.20. The urban sprawl provoked by this low built density has practically extended to the limits imposed by forests, lakes, rivers, and flood danger zones. The diversity plan makes it possible to understand the frequent traffic movement between the areas of individual residences and the initial project cores: almost all the amenities are grouped in these attractive centers. Although today, mobility within the cores is still by walking, the link with the urban sprawl area is mainly by car, causing significant road congestion (pedestrian network plan and car network plan). Although a free bus service connects the entire urban sprawl area to the compact cores, this public transport proves to be incapable of efficiently serving the municipality because it utilizes the same saturated road network.69 As pedestrian travel was clearly separated from car traffic from the outset, the congestion around the pedestrian cores does not yet disrupt their internal mobility. However it significantly degrades the overall quality of life (views of traffic jams, noisy walkways, pollution, etc.). Regardless of the car, note that the pedestrian routes already present problems of fluidity due to the increasing population; during major events, it is difficult to stroll

along the main artery as it struggles to accommodate the crowd. This saturation level also impacts the public services, initially planned for a lower number of visitors. The plan of the different types of beds shows that the two cores contain only occupied beds while the surrounding area consists mainly of secondary residences exclusively used by private owners. As the municipal equipment, services, and transport infrastructure operate year-round in the cores, the visitor always has the impression of being in an occupied town, even though the surrounding houses are often empty. 66 See “Events,” Whistler Blackcomb (website), https://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/events-and-activities/events. 67 The business model of Intrawest, which operates a portion of Whistler Blackcomb’s infrastructure, is based on these ideas. See in particular: http://www.intrawest.com/. The case of Mont-Tremblant is another relevant example of a year-round “attractiveness model”: summer attendance is even greater than winter; Above all, it manages to fully guarantee occupied beds, while 60 percent of buyers are foreigners. 68 The Whistler Urban Development Containment Area (WUDCA) and the RMOW zoning map (2015) are the Swiss equivalent of the cantonal master plan and the communal allocation plan. See the Official Community Plan, Resort Municipality of Whistler (website), https://www.whistler.ca/ municipal-gov/strategies-and-plans/ocp. 69 Currently 40 percent of the traffic is provided by the bus, the equivalent of one million passengers per year, and 60 percent by car. See map of the bus network at: http://bctransit.com/servlet/documents/ maps/1403640576590.

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Document 3: Typical section and the snow boundary, Ecosign (2013)

Limits of the Exportable Prototype This brief summary shows how the functioning of the compact town is today destabilized and challenged by the authorized spread development. This case study asserts that it is not enough to design sustainable cores to ensure rational land use. The urban sprawl around the compact town is undoubtedly an aberrant example of land use that does not take into account the natural context. Whistler Blackcomb has the same urban model, based on a weak individual housing density, as many American suburbs. Therefore, while Whistler Blackcomb still manages to contain the important growth resulting from its success, there is also dependence on the accommodation created all around it. With hindsight, one might ponder why designers and authorities stopped at the definition of urban and economic rules for the two compact cores without including the surrounding land. Although the original project has the merit of raising and effectively resolving the question of extending the viable critical size of a core pedestrian core, it does not anticipate that the two-core system will also eventually reach its limit. Although it does indeed seem difficult to anticipate any growth beyond fifty years, the project should have, at the same time, set development rules for the adjacent lands. The habitable surface, currently built as single-family houses along the valley, could have been contained in only three cores similar in size to the Whistler Blackcomb originals, using 177 hectares instead of 3,235. The relationship to the natural con142 | Whistler Blackcomb

text would have been closer to that initially imagined. The implementation of the three additional cores would have required thorough consideration of the mobility issues to avoid the current contradiction; the pedestrian route is effectively a mobility device encircled by a road network, and the public transport intended to link the cores is inefficient because it uses the same roads as the cars. The case of Whistler Blackcomb, however, makes it possible to state the idea of a compact, reticular town, formed of several pedestrian cores connected by a public transport system independent of the automobile road network. We will see in the section “Densification Strategies” (pp. 196–229) how this presentation feeds into our contemporary town proposal. Whistler Blackcomb also raises another essential question: is it relevant to design a prototype that could be transposed to different natural contexts? We’ve seen that the Whistler model is typical of those found in other Ecosign projects.70 Indeed, the urban and economic model of the US integrated resort was the reference for a large part of the Japanese projects of the 1980s and 1990s, subsequently inspiring projects in China, Korea, India, Eastern Europe, etc.71 Even if the designers say that these prototypes take climatic factors into account (sunshine, snow, etc.), all the cross sections are similar. The contrast with the cross sections of Avoriaz is striking. We have seen that this case is not limited to applying a functional theoretical model to virgin landscape but that it is born from the symbiosis between an urban prototype and a specific natural context. These projects, on the other hand, seem to be content to apply the theoret-

Document 4: Application of the typical “American” section to a project in India (Himalayas), Mountainworks

ical model, as is, to any context, limiting themselves to varying the facade style according to the country (documents 3 and 4). We find the repeated idea of a compact plan structured by an animated central pedestrian artery that ends at the snow boundary where ski lifts depart for the trails. Whether in India or Canada, these prototypes therefore condition the same way of living on the mountain, denying contextual interest. This simplification is possible because these resorts are often located at the bottom of the valley on flat land and, particularly, in the middle of virgin land. This prototype could not be applied as a model for densification of an existing Alpine town. By reversing the chronology of the stages of urbanization, we could read the case of Whistler Blackcomb as a Verbier into which one injects, onto the remaining building zones, autonomous compact cores, independent of the existing urbanization. This projection makes it possible to understand that Verbier’s sustainability would not be solved by a compact system that densifies the town by ignoring the existing natural and built context. In our view, this is the main weakness of the Whistler Blackcomb prototype. We are still limited today to exporting a model originally designed to colonize untouched sites, as would have been done sixty years ago.72 This strategy does not question the true contemporary problem, namely how to densify an existing Alpine town. We will see that Andermatt Swiss Alps is the application of a functional compact urban model to an existing settlement in its natural context. The project invents a contextual infrastructure that allows it to connect rationally to the existing town; this civil engineering structure puts it into context and makes it unique.

70 Ecosign, Intrawest, and Mountainworks, among others, are design offices specializing in the design of resorts (urbanization of villages, ski slope plan, year-round occupation model, etc.). The Ecosign conference in Kaoponik (Serbia) in June 2013 presented several projects in very different contexts, all designed according to these same principles. 71 The Daemyung resort in South Korea, called Vivaldi Park to signal that it is open during the four seasons of the year, offers in turn new ideas to attract a strong clientele, for example downhill Alpine skiing with trails open until five o’clock in the morning. 72 We refer here to the urban model; the economic model is no longer based exclusively on the practice of skiing as it was sixty years ago.

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ANDERMATT SWISS ALPS Contemporary Densification of a Military “Wasteland” Connected to a Transport Infrastructure

146 | Andermatt

Already in the thirteenth century, the main north– south route across Switzerland and Europe passed through Andermatt. A major artery for commercial exchanges and military campaigns, the multiple transport and national defense infrastructures  – roads, tunnels, galleries, and fortifications – led to early urbanization. While in 1930, even 1960, many mountain villages were still only accessible by a modest footpath and frequently were not interconnected, Andermatt is an international crossroad, served by a navigable road from 1830 and by train from 1926.73 Although the development of a majority of Alpine municipalities only occurs later through development of mass winter tourism, multiplying the surface area occupied by the Alpine village of Verbier by more than 30 times over a 60-year period, that of Andermatt has merely doubled, as its expansion is not influenced by tourism. Andermatt’s financial resources are assured by the service sector, but the army remains an essential employer for the inhabitants of the existing village. In 2005 they found themselves unemployed when the army considerably reduced its activity. The land occupied by the parade ground and other defense installations lost its original function, becoming in part a military “wasteland.” 74 The reallocation of this neglected urban space concerns the authorities; indeed, unlike other mountain areas coveted by investors, it is not, at first glance, an ideal Alpine site. Built on flat ground at an altitude of 1,444 meters, touching the foot of the mountain that encircles it on three sides, Andermatt offers a valley floor panorama without breathtaking views, without a south-facing slope. A military landscape, highway and rail infrastructures, predominate. Difficult Alpine climatic conditions  – 3.5 degrees Celsius annual average temperature, 76  days of fresh snow, and 150 days of rain per year – reinforce the austerity of this landscape. In the existing village, adjacent to the military wasteland, a cosmopolitan and glamorous ambiance is far from obvious. However, in 2006, Orascom Development Holding AG identified the strong potential of this wasteland (coupled with some available land in the existing village). This Egyptian company is building the largest project currently under construction in the Alps. Although this contemporary project has a size similar to that of several integrated resorts, we will see that its relation to the location is very different: Andermatt is not an artifact implanted in the middle of a virgin countryside but a project of urban densification, built in an area of prior construction and grafted onto existing transport networks. In this chapter, we will first show that Andermatt’s evolution is mainly understood through the evolution of military and transport infrastructures. They

dictated the development, and paradoxically, the decline of urbanization. We will then review the changes in land use planning that were necessary upstream of the new project, to allow for its construction; it will be apparent that the large size influences the negotiation processes.75 We will finally see that the new project follows Andermatt’s historical continuity with the invention of a hybrid infrastructure, a concrete base called the podium, which resolves three issues in one: the site’s different traffic movements, protection against natural (and artificial) hazards, and a need for high habitation density.76 The analysis will show that the new project is a key example in current debates concerning the federal land use act.

Urban Development Grafted onto Transport Infrastructure As with many mountain villages, the compact Andermatt settlement is initially influenced by topography and climate (protection against wind, avalanche dangers, floods, etc.). However, even if the location of the existing village responds to climatic constraints similar to those of other traditional Alpine villages, that of Andermatt is distinguished by its unusual transport routes. Historical maps show that the village grew up around the Gotthard route; with buildings located on both sides of this road, which serves as an international link. This formed a very early link between towns and not just from town to mountain village, placing Andermatt on this important route. Such unique Alpine accessibility is 73 The Gotthard rail tunnel, which passes under Andermatt and provides an underground connection between northern and southern Europe, dates from 1882. However, it would take almost fifty years for a second rail network serving Andermatt to be built on the surface. 74 We use wasteland in quotation marks because even if the army has abandoned the majority of the land occupied by it since 2005, Andermatt still contains military infrastructure: for example the Alpine service competence center is still there. 75 Note that the present study benefits, for the legal aspects of the project as well as for obtaining source documents, the valuable contribution of Mrs. Nathalie Adank (MLaw, University of Fribourg), with whom we organized an Alpine workshop in February 2014 in the framework of the Complex Design doctoral program. We will also incorporate some input from the stakeholders who participated in this workshop. 76 Several articles, notably Kruker and Meier 2012, provide a pertinent analysis of the socioeconomic study.

147

found only in rare (and less important) cases such as Grand St. Bernard or San Bernardino. By allowing access by horse-drawn carriage or stagecoach, the construction of the navigable road in 1830 (schematic 1) greatly accelerated preexisting commercial traffic dating from the thirteenth century and led, a few decades later, to summer health tourism. Andermatt became an important stopping point, which included private dwellings, farm buildings, commercial and luxurious hotels in the same village.77 The road infrastructure was the source of significant trade and tourism, but would also be responsible for its decline. Indeed, construction of the Gotthard rail tunnel in 1882, favoring train travel at the expense of the mountain pass that allows the journey by horsedrawn carriage, served to isolate the village. It would be almost fifty years before Andermatt became accessible by surface train and a few more decades before the rise of the private car gave new impetus to travel by road. The end of the nineteenth century marked the first decline in Andermatt’s passing traffic, but it also gave the village a singular new identity, linked not to tourism but to the army’s presence. Even if Andermatt were a strategic military location well before the nineteenth century, it is notably from 1885 that the construction of defense infrastructures (fortifications, armament store, Altkirch barracks, command post, etc.) affirms its new designation as a military village. For more than a century, the military would be an important economic resource, creating jobs for the local population. Andermatt is located on a major military defense axis, particularly important during the Second World War. Many underground structures, camouflaged and imitating the natural terrain, strongly but discreetly define the landscape.78 The army also constructed other infrastructure (roads, water, and electricity networks, etc.) that directly influenced development in the region and, in particular, at Andermatt. Andermatt became the geographical reference for Alpine national defense. The military infrastructure is built away from existing settlements, between the road and the northeast flank of the mountain, on the flat land of the flood zones. The arrival of the train in 1926, located between these military installations and the village, marked a new transport era for Andermatt (schematic 2). Indeed, even if the locality were already well connected by the north-south road and then by the east-west road, rail access allowed the discovery of new landscapes at different altitudes and caused the realization of new structures to overcome natural obstacles. 79 It is important to remember that these transport infrastructures also serve to drain mountain water; they are thus climate-related. Andermatt would exploit this strong tourism potential in public transport to differentiate itself from other Alpine resorts. 148 | Andermatt

Document 1: Andermatt on the strategic military defense axis

The singularity of Andermatt’s winter sports activity also results from collaboration between tourism and the army in the 1950s. In the 1960s, Andermatt was a winter resort known to the general public and accessible by car. The release of the James Bond movie Goldfinger, in which Sean Connery races along the winding roads of the Gotthard, probably contributed to the village’s renown in the automotive world (schematic 3). In order to avoid the increasingly heavy road traffic crossing the village of Andermatt, a new road bypass was built between the train station and the military training grounds (schematics 4 and 5). This also plays an important climate role, as the embankment under the road serves as protection against flooding of the river Reuss. Note that the opening of the Gotthard road tunnel in 1980 took place one hundred years after that of the railway tunnel. The various means of transport to access the village – train, car, and also cable car to reach the ski slopes  – both above- and belowground allow Andermatt to adapt to behavioral changes in terms of mobility. Yet paradoxically, despite the construction of numerous transport infrastructures allowing excellent accessibility and guaranteed snow until early spring offering optimal conditions for skiing, the urban development of Andermatt remains relatively modest. If in other Alpine villages, where a few houses and mayens with barely 300 farmers are transformed in 60 years into a mountain town of 30,000 beds, the population of Andermatt only increased from 800 to 1,300 during the same period.80 While the surface area occupied by the buildings of these same villages increased more than 30 times (in the case of Verbier), that of Andermatt evolved only from 4 to 7 hectares (schematics 2 to 5). This weak development has preserved Andermatt from the urban sprawl caused by mass tourism. Andermatt is grafted onto

an international transport route and has an important construction heritage not limited to a few mayens surrounded by virgin countryside.81 This landscape of infrastructure, of concrete, and of rock defines the military terrain on which the new Andermatt Swiss Alps project is being built (schematic 6, section 2). 77 Scheuerer (2011) studies luxury hotels in the region, including documentation of Andermatt’s Grand Hotel Bellevue (destroyed in 1986), and recalls that it is one of the first destinations attracting luxury tourism in the Swiss Alps. 78 Burkhardt (2003) dedicates himself to study of the AW San Carlo fortification and examines the extent of the army’s underground constructions. See also the Inventory of Command and Combat Works, published in 2005 by the Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS). 79 The Glacier-Express, for example, a train inaugurated in 1930 that links St. Moritz to Zermatt and stops at Andermatt, crosses 91 tunnels and 291 bridges. Today, the Glacier-Express alone accounts for 200,000 passengers per year. Andermatt lies not only on the important north-south axis but also on this important east-west axis for movement of Swiss tourism. 80 The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (2009) states that Andermatt has 605 inhabitants in 1799; 677 in 1850; 818 in 1900; 1,231 in 1950; 1,589 in 1970; and 1,282 in 2000. We have not yet added the 5,300 beds provided by the new Andermatt Swiss Alps project. 81 See the issue dedicated to Andermatt in the Discover Heritage series, published in 2004 by Swiss Heritage, as well as the ISOS inventory of the Swiss Federal Office of Culture (OFC). These two documents capture the richness of Andermatt’s built heritage, of which the architectural quality of certain buildings deserves to be preserved.

Documents 2 to 5: Strong military presence at Andermatt (1905, 1944, and photos of real bunkers)

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Schematic 1 : 1830

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The Podium: Contextual Infrastructure as a Key Element in Planning the Complex Project that Is Andermatt Swiss Alps We call the new project complex because the expressions integrated resort or tourist resort often used to describe it seem inappropriate.82 We immediately emphasize this distinction because it is indicative of Andermatt Swiss Alps’ main distinguishing characteristic; its links to the existing context, and particularly to the transport infrastructure. An integrated resort is a colonizing project involving the realization of a new resort exclusively dedicated to skiing and requiring new transport infrastructures to serve it. It is built in the middle of almost virgin countryside, accessible in summer via a single footpath, where only a few Alpine mayens betray the presence of man at such altitudes. The important topographic difference between the ski resort built at an altitude of 1,800 meters and the preexisting village often located more than 500 meters below, prevents any direct relationship between the two developments, separate entities by design. Moreover, the difference takes no account of the wishes of the village’s few hundred inhabitants, nor of the mayor, with the support of national authorities, nor the single promoter who plans a city of several thousand tourists. At altitude, the artificial resort, able to tame nature during the harshest months of the year, hibernates in summer. For more than five months, the transport infrastructure, which only connects the ski resort to the slopes and to the inhabited valley, is unused. Andermatt’s new project is not an integrated resort. Initially, the canton of Uri offered the Egyptian investor land at altitude. This land offers ideal and increasingly rare qualities: a mountain site, almost virgin countryside with a small urban footprint, a panoramic view, south-facing, calm, isolated, etc. Despite the possibility of acquiring one of these sites on slopes overlooking the valley, the investor considered it smarter to develop the new project at Andermatt, on abandoned military sites, connecting it to the existing transport infrastructure. Andermatt Swiss Alps is an urbanization project to increase existing habitation density, the graft of a new urban design, not onto a terminus of seasonal infrastructures to be built, but onto the axis of existing urban transport that connects Zurich to Milan throughout the year. The choice of building the new project such that it’s directly linked to the existing transport infrastructure is the singularity of Andermatt Swiss Alps, and that which differentiates  it 156 | Andermatt

Documents 6 and 7: Andermatt in 2006 and in 2030

when compared to the typical integrated resort. Its realization at the bottom of the valley, at the same altitude and opposite the existing village (section 3), defines a very different contextual relation to that of an integrated resort with preexisting urban settlement. As will be discussed below, infrastructure, topography, and other factors such as nature, climate, or contemporary Swiss politics, have required Andermatt Swiss Alps to take account of the existing context.

The complex project differs from other appellations previously seen (integrated resort, bigness, hybrids, etc.) by its link to the existing context. The case of Andermatt Swiss Alps shows that today, more than twenty years after the publication of S, M, L, XL, it is indeed necessary to reexamine the notion of “bigness” because it can no longer be summed up in the famous “fuck context” reply.83 In contrast to Rem Koolhaas’s theory, Andermatt Swiss Alps responds with “love context” or rather “must love context.” Large Size: Between the Constraints and Privileges of the Federal Land Use Act Andermatt Swiss Alps is the largest project under development in the Alps  – it translates to 365,000 square meters built on 30 hectares of land.84 Documents 6 and 7 represent an aerial view of Andermatt’s development in 2006, with a photomontage representing the implementation of the new project. To allow construction of the latter, the authorities had to change the classification of the military zone and some agricultural land from nonconstructible to constructible tourist zones.85 The total size of the new built surface thus obtained (30 hectares) is almost double that built during several centuries.

82 A project of more than 100,000 square meters, “positioned at an intermediate scale between town fragment and megabuilding [...] integrating the functions of mobility, equipment and activities in both compact and broader operations. [...].” Partial definition extracted from the application document of the EPFL–LAMU laboratory at the SNSF, CompleXdesign: Large-Scale Construction, Thinking Big, March 2010. 83 Koolhaas and Mau 1995, pp. 495–516. 84 This area concerns only the building area of the new project (including infrastructure parking) and does not take into account the new golf course or the extension of the ski area between Andermatt and Sedrun that we will briefly introduce below. 85 Outside the building zone, 130 hectares of the nonconstructible agricultural zone have been allocated to a no-build-zone golf area, allowing the development of an 18-hole golf course (GI zone on the map). 86 For full legal details, see: Canton Uri 2006b and Canton Uri, commune of Andermatt 2006a. 87 Phrase taken directly from Franz Weber’s Sauver le sol Suisse, 2008.

The first localized neighborhood plan (PLQ), based on the 2007 Denniston master plan (document 9), specifies the spatial organization of the diverse development, summarized by the different zones of the allocation plan. It mainly defines the operating principle of the podium that we’ll present in the following paragraphs. Before obtaining building permits, Orascom had to prove the new project’s sustainability. The podium spatially integrates the conditions imposed by the authorities: implementation of a flood protection system to secure the flood zone so that it becomes constructible, good management of traffic and energy, control of the impact on nature, etc.86 The 2007 master plan proposes a new urban density for the mountain. The surface area occupied by individual villas represents only 4 percent of the project’s total surface; in other Alpine municipalities the individual chalet occupies the majority of the site. However, the new project’s large but compact size, planned as one operation, and its “mountain” style, was strongly criticized. The negative perception of the size and density of this complex project is based on erroneous judgments: Andermatt Swiss Alps is defined as a “pharaonic” project, “gigantic,” “disproportionate,” whereas Verbier, for example, is defined as a charming mountain village, though the latter occupies eight times the area of “precious Swiss land.”87 The comparative synthesis (pp. 188–193 and comparative map) belies these received ideas. 157

Houses

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Document 8: Zone assignment plan, commune of Andermatt (2009)

Financing of the entire new project, estimated at 1.8  billion Swiss francs by a single foreign private investor, is also at the origin of the apprehension felt by the population. Andermatt Swiss Alps AG is 51 percent owned by the investor Mr. Samih O. Sawiris and 49 percent by Orascom, of which Mr. Sawiris is the sole chairman. The success of the operation appears to depend on one man. If the entire project is not completed, it will leave an urban stillbirth in the Alpine landscape. The question is not only aesthetic (the landscape would be greatly altered, vis-à-vis the existing village of Andermatt) but also raises a political necessity, since the local economy seems totally dependent on jobs promised by the new project. To ensure its global finalization, the authorities have signed infrastructure contracts with Orascom that define a calendar for the different construction stages.88 They do not only take into account the project’s profitability for the investor and also require the construction, according to predefined deadlines, of public amenities, which also benefit the existing village and the region.

160 | Andermatt

While the size of the complex project subjects the investor to many constraints, it is also an important lever for negotiating exceptions to usual procedures (authorization of a large number of additional building hectares, derogations from the Koller and the Weber legislation, speed of acceptance of the master and allocation plan, etc.). The derogations granted, even if they comply with Swiss law governing land use and the environment, raise questions: why should the size of this complex project benefit from certain privileges that an ordinary project would not obtain?89 The key factor in answering that is precisely the size. The challenge of a project like Andermatt Swiss Alps is not comparable to that of an individual chalet: one is considered to influence the economy of a whole region, and so also serves public interest, while the other only serves private interest.

Document 9: Master plan base of the first PLQ, Denniston (2007) 88 In law, the term infrastructure includes not only equipment in the technical sense but also sociocultural equipment. 89 Question posed in the presentation by Ms. Danja Brosi, a lawyer in the Justice Directorate of the Canton of Uri, who showed the elements that constitute the basis of cooperative planning.

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Documents 10 and 11: Sections indicating the podium footprint, Denniston (2007)

Large Size and Infrastructure Necessity Although the first master plan of 2007 required much subsequent modification before being an example of a qualitative density in the mountains, it already states the idea of the podium as the infrastructure underlying the design of Andermatt Swiss Alps. We consider the podium infrastructure because it has the support role of a civil engineering project; it responds to the territory’s need and scale; it solves various technical issues of the new town. The podium is a component of the system, but also a necessary precondition for it to function; without this infrastructure that binds the entire project together, Andermatt Swiss Alps would not be viable.90 This single element manages the site’s various transport systems; protects the development against natural (flood) and artificial (soil pollution) hazards; serves as a common structural and technical base for more than forty new buildings, allowing their high built density; and offers a new public pedestrian space.

164 | Andermatt

In the following paragraphs we analyze how the podium solves different issues that are specific to the project’s size. Infrastructure, Transport Interfaces, and Pedestrian Mobility It should be noted that Andermatt is located on the north–south axis of the Gotthard (connecting Zurich to Milan) and on the east-west axis (linking Zermatt to St. Moritz). It is very well served by the motorway as well as by train, with 81 trains per day stopping at Andermatt station; Zermatt, the Alpine emblem of exclusive rail accessibility, has only 50 trains per day.91 On average around 5,100 cars arrive daily in Andermatt via the Gotthard route from Göschenen.92 In winter, average weekday traffic is estimated at 2,500 vehicles per day, with weekend peaks of up to 7,400 vehicles per day; in summer, the weekday average is 7,000 vehicles per day and can increase up to 16,000 cars a day on weekends.93 Unlike other

Documents 12: Schematics indicating the podium footprint, Denniston (2007)

Alpine towns, whose ski slopes attract more road traffic in winter than in summer, Andermatt’s car traffic is higher in summer. However, in proportion to the size of the existing village, its winter traffic is still high. It should be noted that the existing Andermatt road network is considered sufficient to contain the current traffic load. Andermatt’s unique year-round appeal and its proximity to major cities – Zurich is two hours by train, one and a half by car; Milan is just over three hours by train and around two hours, twenty minutes by car – indicate its accessibility.94

90 We have used the word infrastructure as defined in Dictionnaire de la géographie et de l’espace des sociétés, ed. Jacques Lévy and Michel Lussault (Paris: Belin, 2003). 91 According to SBB and MGB (2014) data. 92 Information taken from Verkehrsaufkommen Ist-Ausgangszustand. Schematischer Belastungsplan. Kanton Uri. Source: data from Ing. Büro Müller and cantonal statistics. 93 Acording to data from TEAMverkehr (2014), M. Oscar Merlo, ETHZ civil engineer and associate. 94 It should be noted that the Gotthard Base Tunnel initially considered the idea of creating a stop under Sedrun: Porta Alpina would have made it possible to connect Sedrun to Zurich and Sedrun to Milan by train, shortening the journey by about an hour compared to its current route. Andermatt would also have benefited from this project, especially with the new cable transports that connect Sedrun to Andermatt. See in particular: Gotthard Base Tunnel, http://www.alptransit.ch/fr/projet.html, and Projet Porta Alpina, http://www.visiun-porta-alpina.ch/Home.29.0.html.

165

Document 13: Upper level plans, Denniston (2007)

Document 14: Upper podium, Denniston (2007)

The new project will generate a significant increase in the traffic flow. TEAMverkehr’s transport studies focus mainly on the management of additional car traffic as Andermatt’s current train service is considered sufficient to accommodate the additional passengers. It is estimated that automobile traffic will increase by 2,900 vehicles per day in winter and 2,800 in summer; this will therefore double the existing winter average on weekdays (from 2,500 to 5,400 cars per day) and will increase by approximately 30 percent the current summer average (from 7,000 to 9,800 cars per day). Planning for this extra traffic had first to integrate the global requirements as determined by the cantonal and regional plan.95 It then defined a local transport solution that takes into account transport to and within the new project as well to the existing village. Note that the traffic density of Andermatt Swiss Alps, including the construction of more than 500 new parking spaces, necessitated an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).96 Before obtaining the building permit, the new project had to demonstrate that it complied with the limits imposed by the authorities.

To manage the extra traffic, the new project offers an infrastructure directly grafted onto the existing road network and connected to the resort. The podium is thus the interface of the site’s various transport options: walking, cable car, bus, train, car. The dense urbanization around the transport systems is what differentiates Andermatt Swiss Alps. In 2007 Denniston’s first overall plan already laid down some general operating principles for the podium. TEAMverkehr’s traffic studies made it possible to optimize its efficiency using specifications for traffic management. Denniston’s plan and schematic sections (documents 10 to 12) summarize the podium’s urban footprint. Located on former military land, it accounts for almost one-third of the area occupied by the new program’s buildings. It comprises an aboveground concrete base, thus defining a new reference level, eight meters higher than the existing ground. The interior of the podium is mainly intended for the management of car traffic. On top of the podium, a large public esplanade allows exclusively pedestrian movement within the new development. The plans of each floor (documents 13

166 | Andermatt

In order to ensure the continuity of walkways throughout the resort despite physical or visual interruptions due to the existing structures, the 2007 project employs variations of podium levels. The floor of the podium folds in order to pass beneath the highway, thus providing connectivity to both sides. The podium structure thus creates a new spatial continuity, a unifying surface for pedestrians. Unfortunately, the podium floor stops at the sports center according to the 2007 project and does not extend to include the new facilities further south. The train station, for example, is disconnected from this new public area, requiring an additional transport system or connection to the podium. To avoid these problems and to guarantee continuity of access from the Reuss to the station, the podium location was subsequently modified. The section 3 schematic summarizes changes to the podium footprint and shows that this new public surface can guarantee continuity of the pedestrian route throughout the project. The podium layout (under, not alongside the new town) and its compactness (gathering all amenities and transport links in a space easily traversable on foot) defines this true pedestrian town (pedestrian network plan). Andermatt Swiss Alps measures about 1 kilometer from end to end; remember the important interdependence between project size and pedestrian mobility.

Document 15: Lower level, Denniston (2007)

to 15) provide a better understanding of the podium’s operation, designed to prevent road congestion and the resultant inconvenience. In order to guarantee the podium’s optimal efficiency, as sketched out in 2007, its design and traffic management were modified by TEAMverkehr, in collaboration with the architectural office responsible. The VSS standards indicate a total number of parking spaces between 1,925 and 2,187, of which between 1,679 and 1,723 should be in the podium.97 These quotas were then refined according to negotiations specific to the complex project, such as taking account of the claims of certain environmental organizations. The project currently plans 1,970 parking spaces, of which 1,750, almost 90 percent, are contained within the podium.98 This management of automobile traffic within the podium makes it possible to free the entire topside for pedestrians. Arrival at the new Andermatt resort is by car or train, whereas circulation within the new project is exclusively on foot, an important criteria being that the resort is designed exclusively for pedestrian use.

95 See the following documents: Canton Uri 2006a, Erläuterungsbericht gemäss Art. 47 RPV; Canton Uri et S-ce 2008; and Commune Andermatt and Basler+Partner 2008. 96 An environmental impact study was also imposed by the creation of a new golf course of more than nine holes. 97 Swiss Association of Road and Transport Professionals, see in particular standard SN 240 281. 98 The other 130 underground places are located in the Chedi Hotel; the 90 surface places are mainly to serve the new golf course (70 places), with the remainder being intended for rapid drop-off at the Chedi Hotel or the train station.

167

3,6 km

of road network to serve 260,000 m2 habitable surface built

Infrastructure directly grafted onto the existing autoroute

168 | Andermatt

Road network

0

200 m

169

1 km

Maximum distance for travel on foot infrastructure = public space

170 | Andermatt

Footpath network |

Footpath

Footpath outside And.

Mechanical lifts

0

200 m

171

Today the new Andermatt project must already take account of its link with the existing buildings, and with transport systems, that are external to its pedestrian base. The existing village may be interpreted as a second pedestrian core, similar to Blackcomb, requiring access connections. While walking allows easy access to the new resort as well as to part of the existing village within the 1-kilometer length criterion, the rest of the development is outside of this comfort range. The concept of global mobility provides for the establishment of public transport between the new project and the existing village to avoid the journey being made by private car. A network of public shuttle buses therefore allows inhabitants of Andermatt village to easily access the new amenities (sports center, shops, golf course, etc.). Conversely, the residents of the new project can benefit from the amenities present in the existing village. Infrastructure and Protection against Natural Hazards The podium not only functions as the mobility infrastructure, managing the new town’s various traffic flows, but also as climate infrastructure, protecting the new project against natural hazards and integrating other natural Alpine realities such as snow into its design. Even if it is situated on almost flat land at the bottom of the valley, Andermatt is an Alpine municipality. Indeed, the new project differs from complex projects in town by its climate characteristics; the altitude, natural hazards, snowfall, light intensity, views, vegetation types, etc. are not those of Sion, Brig, or Ilanz. The Urseren Valley, of which Andermatt is the most easterly village, is known for its high flood risk. The detailed flood hazard plan for Andermatt according to HQ 100 (document 16) shows that the military sites upon which the new project is located are mainly situated in a blue danger zone, for which construction requires the installation of flood protection elements.99 While the highway and the embankment below form an effective protective barrage for part of the existing village, their position south of the parade ground does not protect the military land. In order that construction could be authorized on this land, the Andermatt complex project, inspired by local Alpine know-how, will also uses the transport infrastructure as a water evacuation system. The podium, a hybrid infrastructure, creates an additional barrage protecting the entire former parade ground. The height of the podium walls is determined so that this concrete plinth can withstand floods. Its vertical dimensions are almost the same as those of the aforementioned highway embankment. In the event of extreme floods, with water flows higher than planned, the podium could also act as a water 172 | Andermatt

retention basin. To mitigate the effects of floods, additional safety measures result from modifications to the river (widening of the bed, raising the banks, etc.). Furthermore, additional distance from the river to the buildings creates a larger no-build zone, providing more natural overflow volume and thus decreasing the flow of the river. After these measures, the land of the old parade ground becomes a nonflood risk area as indicated by the Flood Hazard Plan (document 17). Andermatt has unfortunately not been able to exploit the infrastructure’s spatial potential to provide more amenities and habitation. Nonetheless, even if the new project “lacks architecture”, the idea of combining transport and hazard protection infrastructure with urbanization is bold and innovative. The podium also protects against artificial hazards (soil contamination). Land returned by the army, including the parade ground, is in part polluted by former military activities. Of the 6,000 tons of contaminated construction material identified, 3,500 tons have been removed to date and 2,500  stored for reuse in the new project.100 The construction of the podium above ground level not only presents an important saving in excavation cost but also simplifies the cleanup work. It should be noted that the design of the podium has to allow for heavy snowfall and particularly, for harsh winter conditions, in addition to the other natural hazards. Andermatt experiences 184 days of ice and snow per year together with 76 days of fresh snow, falling to depths of up to 200 centimeters per day. The temperature remains below 0 degrees Celsius for 169 days per year with an average annual temperature of only 3.5 degrees Celsius. Sunshine is limited to 1,435 hours per year with strong winds, gusting to above 208 kilometers per hour at Gütsch (above Andermatt, at an altitude of 2,332 meters).101 The podium integrates these climatic constraints, in particular by managing the new project’s transport. Accommodating all automobile traffic the podium avoids traffic disturbance by snow and on its upper deck, untouched by cars, the snow remains fresh, white, and clean, offering pleasing aesthetics for pedestrians. By this means it is possible, even in winter, to guarantee the quality of the walkways around the principal public areas, toward which new shops, restaurants, public transport stops, sports center, etc., are focused. Andermatt Swiss Alps considers the podium’s high building density sufficient to constitute an effective protection against winter weather. As in traditional Alpine villages, the building density allows one to walk around with almost uninterrupted shelter from the weather. The plan area of the podium’s central zone, north of the highway, is almost the same as that of the existing village’s historic core, which is also pedestrian-only throughout the year.

Document 16: Podium flood danger zone, HQ 100 (before construction), Basler Hofmann

Document 17 : Podium flood danger zone, HQ 100 (after construction), Basler Hofmann

While the natural world in many Alpine towns is largely confined to a collection of private individual gardens, the new Andermatt project is characterized by a single large inorganic public area. To soften this the podium is subdivided in plan and section to create different sequences of public space, defining specific relationships with the nature of the project and that of its surroundings (nature plan). 99 Plans submitted by Mr. Beat Hodel, head of the Environment Section, Basler Hofmann Consultancy group. HQ 100 is a flood flow indicator occurring every 100 years (in cubic meters/second); it enables evaluation of the flood risk and, in particular, to anticipate the measures necessary to protect the building area. 100 Data provided by the company Jäckli Geologie, Zurich, mandated to evaluate existing pollution of the military grounds where the new project and golf course is located. 101 Data extracted from the Andermatt Climate records, Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss.

173

83 %

Building surface within former flood zones before protection infrastructure

174 | Andermatt

Natural dangers |

Avalanche danger

Flood danger

0

200 m

175

Infrastructure = inorganic public space

176 | Andermatt

Vegetation |

Forests

Pasture land

Artificial landscape

Golf course

Rocks

0

200 m

177

Even if the complex project is built at the bottom of the valley, it has strong links to its natural environment. Year-round public transport allows access to the natural countryside at altitude in all seasons, a very rare quality in the mountains, thereby creating new Alpine activities. The new project still focuses too much on promoting the region’s winter season attractions, highlighting guaranteed high snowfall that will rank the new Ski Arena domain among the most attractive in the country. Meanwhile the podium’s year-long access to the natural countryside should allow the promotion of new Alpine activities that can take place outside of the winter season.102 The new project could for example propose another activity linking tourism to the site’s previous military function, not only based on winter sports but also on visits to the bunkers around Andermatt. It could also combine tourism with ecological interest; imagine visits led by the scientists who designed the highest wind farm in Europe at Gütsch.103 Above all, the new project takes nature into account by protecting it from urban sprawl, with the definition of a new approach to high density Alpine development. Infrastructure, New Alpine Density, and Occupied Beds Concentrating automobile traffic within the podium releases a large continuous external surface, available exclusively for buildings and pedestrian use. The absence of cars permits a compact building plan. The 2007 master plan already proposed the principle of building on the podium. The central cross section (document 11) indicates a decrease in building height to gradually blend the town with its natural surroundings. With the new project, we move from a significant height (podium + eight floors) on the highway side to a low height (two floors) at the mountain side. This first section appears to express the idea of built density according to the existing context, at times very tight and urban toward the transport networks, at times more open and green toward the Reuss and the golf course. However the 2007 location plan is difficult to understand. Light on detail, this first master plan was refused by the construction commission. However, subsequent competitions, workshops, and other procedures have been organized by the developer to improve the quality of the plan. The center is now defined by a more uniform and orderly urban layout, comprising twenty-one buildings, four to five floors high, grouped into seven blocks. The biased envelope of the buildings, and their grouping, are 178 | Andermatt

determined to allow a visual relationship with the mountainside landscape to the north, but also to define east-west views of the resort. This layout also allows light to penetrate all facades and public spaces despite the compact nature and depth of the buildings. The strong built-to-total-plan area (0.61) and high built density (2.4), designed according to context, characterize the central part of the podium. Singular spatial relationships result: a view of the stone and wood of the neighboring facade, walks in narrow alleys formed and encircled by solid building volumes, sensing the climate through the built fabric of the resort center. This link with built density is similar to that experienced in traditional Alpine villages, where the houses are rationally built very close together for shelter and protection from the climate. Note that the size of the podium center and that of the historical Andermatt village are very similar (documents 18 and 20). Even though the built density of the central part of the new project is more than twice that of the existing core, and although the width of the streets and the height of the buildings are also greater, the proportions of open and public spaces that result is similar (documents 19 and 21). The average density of the new project is 0.87 (260,000  square meters built on 30 hectares of building zone) and 1.22 if the podium surface is included (giving a total built surface of 365,000 square meters). The compact plan layout and maximum building heights (plan densities) are superior to those of many Alpine towns, defining a new density far greater than that of the individual chalet. The reduction in building heights from the highway to the Reuss gradually links those public activities on the noisy side to private individual activities on the quiet and natural side. Between the two is a dense area of collective dwellings. The Andermatt complex project brings together on one site: a train and cable car station, parking for 1,970 cars, a sports center, a convention center, shops, 6 hotels, 42 buildings with around 490 apartments, and 25 villas as well as an 18-hole golf course (diversity plan). This development takes into account Andermatt’s excellent transport facilities, as mentioned above. The new complex project is often referred to as a tourist resort or holiday village, while its mixed program and transport define it, in our opinion, as a real town, with urban programs and an urban agenda. The new development is not exclusively geared to meeting the needs of an isolated resort in the middle of pristine countryside, but also takes into account its connection with the existing adjacent village, and, on a larger scale, with the town.

102 The alarming retreat of the Gurschen glacier above Andermatt required the installation of tarpaulins in 2005 to protect it from melting: this situation shows that this region is also sensitive to climate change and that it will have to reinvent itself in the long term. 103 The existing village of Andermatt exploits the region’s specific climate conditions. The energy produced by the Gütsch wind turbines since 2004 has increased in the past ten years from 150,000 to 5,388,769 kWh/year. See data from the Federal Office of Energy:https://api3.geo. admin.ch/rest/services/ech/MapServer/ch.bfe.windenergieanlagen/ facility_GUE/extendedHtmlPopup?lang=fr.

Documents 18 to 21: Podium central zone (2012) and existing village square (1905)

179

The new transport infrastructure (car park and station) concentrated at the heart of the podium links to the existing transport networks and accounts for 30 percent of the entire works. This high percentage recalls the importance of mobility management within the project. The equipment, which accounts for 10 percent, was also defined to respond to amenities missing from the existing village. Negotiations between the investor and the local authorities allowed Andermatt residents to benefit from new privately financed infrastructure (station, protection against natural dangers) and equipment (sports center, convention center, etc.), which are usually financed by the commune. This coordination between the new project and the existing village is also found in the other parts of the works. The new housing and hotels are of a four- and five-star standard, thus completing the current offer composed mainly of two- and three-star facilities. Even the restaurant menus were chosen so that the new project does not compete with the services of the existing village. Andermatt is not exclusively a destination for rich foreigners, as is often read in the press, but an Alpine town bringing a well-off clientèle together with existing customers of more modest means.

architectural firm or a limited consortium of less than five architects, show that a large project can assert unity without being totalitarian. Each building has its own particularity while creating a uniform project, a coherent architectural language. Andermatt Swiss Alps is radical in its infrastructure-based proposal, but its architecture struggles to match the project’s founding philosophy. Andermatt in 2030: The End of an Urban Cycle? The podium is a sine qua non to ensure smooth running of the Andermatt complex project, enabling transport management, protection against flood danger, and definition of an innovative built

Apart from hotels, which account for 20 percent of the entire program, all other dwellings, representing 40 percent, are exclusively conceived as second homes. The new project proposes an original management of these (plan beds). Out of 5,300 in total, about 34 percent are hotel beds, 33 percent are located in second homes rented year-round (via hotel management), and only 33 percent are in second homes and not rented. The new project has a bed occupancy of more than 67 percent. From its conception in 2006, well before the popular vote for Franz Weber’s initiative in March 2012, Andermatt was already proposing bed management inspired by the American condominium model. If the economic strategy of Orascom is commendable (build and operate, not just build and sell), it should nonetheless be noted that contrary to the model which it resembles, the new apartment’s sale contract doesn’t impose any legal obligation compelling the owner to rent. The diverse podium buildings designed by different offices follow a multitude of architectural styles, creating a heterogeneous “Alpine Disneyland” (documents 22 to 25). Today, some experts say that grand-scale architecture is only accepted by the public if it offers a diversity of styles. They allege that fear of totalitarian unity leads to a collection of disparate and exuberant architectural styles that struggle to form a coherent project. Projects such as Avoriaz, Flaine, and Les Arcs, designed by a single 180 | Andermatt

Documents 22 to 25: Different densities project

density (see cross-section 3). The organization and compact nature of the plan induced by the podium define a new relationship with Alpine countryside, as will be revealed by the comparative synthesis of the various case studies. The modest land use and absence of automobile traffic within the new project (as a result, exclusively pedestrian) better preserve the landscape than a sprawling Alpine town made piecemeal by simple multiplication of individual chalets and road networks. Our purpose is not to affirm that we must only urbanize the Alps with large holistically conceived compact projects, but rather to note that grafting such a development onto major and existing transport axes represents an intelligent means of densification. The stigmatization of development is not a convincing answer to the current issue of urban sprawl. The complex project shows that it is possible, even desirable, to build large, dense, and sustainable works, build big, and protect nature. The size of the new project is not by chance, but corresponds to a size allowing control of its urban and economic development. As recalled by Mr. Sawiris, Andermatt’s military wasteland is an incredible opportunity: it not only allows him to apply his acquisition principles of buying worthless land requiring little investment, but also has the distinction of being very well served by the existing transport infrastructure.104 Mr. Sawiris acquires worthless land and adds value by constructing the complex project; in other words, he succeeded in securing Andermatt’s monopoly. Indeed, if the size of the project is determined by urban requirements, it also corresponds to the desired investment size. The magnitude of the Andermatt complex project makes it possible to block the creation of any new building zones around it. The nonconstructibility of the surrounding land guarantees Mr Sawiris control of real estate development in Andermatt and the entire valley. If after the construction of Andermatt Swiss Alps there are still building plots available in the existing village, their size is insignificant to compete with the same market segment as that controlled by the new project. The same argument applies to the second-home market.

Alps will be faced, as several 1960s developed Alpine towns currently are, with the delicate question of the end of its life cycle. The size limit of the Andermatt complex project is determined, as in Avoriaz or Whistler and Blackcomb, by the maximum comfortable walking distance of 1 kilometer. However, even if the new project is designed as a finished size, its link with existing mobility extends its life cycle beyond that limit. Andermatt Swiss Alps is not conceived as an isolated, efficient, and self-sufficient bubble in the middle of virgin country, where any change in size implies a questioning of this autonomous entity, but in relation to its existing context. Pedestrian mobility is not only conceived as a function of the new project’s length limit, but also in relation to how public transport serves the existing village and other urban areas. Any future densification or extension of the Andermatt complex project will have to use the starting point of the current project: its link with the strong potential of existing transport. The sustainable town is not necessarily a single compact entity but may consist of several compact urban cores interconnected by an existing train or cable car. A reticulated city bound by green public transport, Andermatt Swiss Alps demonstrates that transport infrastructure is a key element of new urban densification in the mountains. 104 Mr. Samih Sawiris, president of Orascom Development Holding AG, presented his economic and management strategy for the Andermatt complex project during the Alpine workshop of February 20, 2014, mentioned above.

As urban development around the new project is already frozen, the size of the complex project will remain by default and its operation not put at risk. However, if the nonconstructibility of the land around the new project appears to solve the size limit issue, it would be naive to claim that this is enough to guarantee the project’s long-term sustainability. What will happen in fifty years, or even before, if the political context changes and demands, for example, new building plots in the region? Andermatt Swiss 181

30 ha Building zones

260 000 m

2

Habitable surface built

0,250

Floor area ratio (FAR)

0,87 Density

2,4

Maximal density on the infrastructure 182 | Andermatt

Building heights (floors)

2-3

4

5

6

7-8

0

200 m

183

30 %

of transport infrastructure

10 %

of public facilities

20 % of hotels

40 % of residences

184 | Andermatt

Building Use Diversity

0

200 m

185

34 % of hotels

33 % of condotels

33 %

of residences not rented Being

67 %

of occupied beds

186 | Andermatt

Beds

0

200 m

187

COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF CASE STUDIES Verbier, Zermatt, Avoriaz, Whistler Blackcomb, and Andermatt

188

It turned out that despite their particularities and for various reasons, these examples are faced with a common problem today: for the first time in the history of Alpine urbanization, the spreading town model and the compact town model simultaneously reach their viable size limit. Using drawings to the same scale, this analysis compared the same chosen parameters, to highlight some key data summarized by the following table. (pp. 192–3) This table schematically summarizes the irrationality of the spreading town model and completes the various saturation levels highlighted by the analysis of each case. Cross-referending this document makes it possible, among other things, to show that the Andermatt Swiss Alps complex project, described by the media as “gigantic” or “pharaonic,” is the most rational model and causes the least harm to Alpine countryside. The comparison of Andermatt Swiss Alps with Verbier village, for example, reveals that, taking into account the same number of square meters built: – Verbier is less than half as dense, six times less dense than the podium. – Sixty percent of Verbier’s built surface comprises individual chalets, compared to only 4 percent for Andermatt Swiss Alps. – Verbier requires fourteen times more road infrastructure. – In Verbier, 41 percent of the built area is in a danger zone and thousands of private structures are needed to protect the chalets from floods, while in Andermatt Swiss Alps the podium infrastructure protects the entire project, and no new buildings are in a danger zone. – Verbier has twice as many homes, five times fewer hotels, and half the facilities. – In Verbier only 5 percent of second homes are rented, compared to 50 percent in Andermatt Swiss Alps. Above all, this table illustrates that the mountain cannot be urbanized using a single solution: each case is specific and requires a contextual response.

189

VE ZE AV WH AN comparatif duZE pourcentage AV d'hôtels, proportionellement VE WH AN aux m2 construits comparatif du pourcentage d'hôtels, proportionellement aux m2 construits

VE ZE AV WH AN Limite de l'extension du bâti,AV comparatif du pourcentage VE ZE WH AN des surfaces totales dans zones de danger Limite de l'extension du bâti, comparatif du pourcentage des surfaces totales dans zones de danger

VER

ZER

AVO

WHI

VE ZE AV WH comparatif occupation du sol par le bâti

AND

VE ZE VE ZE AV WH AN Densité du bâti comparatif de la quantité de logements proportionellement VE ZE aux m2 construits Built densitydu bâti Densité

AN

VE ZE AV WH AN comparatif de la quantité de logements proportionellement aux m2 construits

Comparison of the evolution of skiing before its industrialization, until 2015

VE ZE AV WH comparatif occupation du sol par le bâti

VE ZE AV WH AN Limite de l'extension du bâti, comparatif du pourcentage des surfaces totales dans zones de danger VER

ZER

AVO

WHI

AND

VE ZE AV WH AN Limite de l'extension du bâti, comparatif du pourcentage des surfaces totales dans zones de danger Comparison of the percentage of the total built surface with danger zones

VE VER

= Verbier ZE Densité du bâti

ZER

VE ZE Densité= Avoriaz du bâti

VE ZE AV WH AN comparatif du pourcentage d'hôtels, proportionellement aux m2 construits

AVO

AV AV

WHI

AND

VER

ZER

AVO

WHI

AND

VEWH ZEAN AV VE WH ZE AN AV WH AN VE WH ZE AN AV comparatif duZE pourcentage AV d'équipements publics, comparatif de la quantité de logements proportionellement comparatif occupation WH AN du sol par le bâtiVE WH AN 2 proportionellement aux m2 construits construits aux mpublics, Comparison of the percentage of residences in proportion to the m2 built area comparatif du pourcentage d'équipements 2 proportionellement aux m construits VE ZE AV WH comparatif occupation du sol par le bâti

AN

VE ZE AV WH AN comparatif de la quantité de logements proportionellement aux m2 construits

VE ZE AV WH comparatif occupation du sol par le bâti

AN

VE ZE AV WH AN comparatif de la quantité de logements proportionellement aux m2 construits

VE ZE AV WH AN Limite de l'extension du bâti, comparatif du pourcentage des surfaces totales dans zones de danger

VE ZE AV WH AN comparatif du pourcentage d'hôtels, proportionellement aux m2 construits

VE ZE AV WH AN ZER AVO WHI AND VER 2 comparatif des kml pour desservir les m construits VE ZE AV WH AN VE WH ZE AN AV WH AN VE ZE AV comparatif du pourcentage d'hôtels, proportionellement de l'extension du bâti, comparatif du pourcentage comparatif des kml pour desservir les Limite m2 construits aux m2 construits des totales dans zones de danger Comparison of length of roads (in km) required to serve the m2surfaces built area

VE ZE AV WH AN comparatif du pourcentage d'hôtels, proportionellement aux m2 construits Comparison of the percentage of hotels in proportion to the m2 built area

VE ZE AV WH AN Limite de l'extension du bâti, comparatif du pourcentage des surfaces totales dans zones de danger

VE ZE AV WH AN comparatif du pourcentage d'hôtels, proportionellement aux m2 construits

VER

ZER

AVO

WHI

AND

AV

WH

AN

VE ZE AV WH comparatif du pourcentage d'équipements publics, proportionellement aux m2 construits

AN

VE ZE Densité du bâti

AV

WH

AN

VE ZE AV WH comparatif du pourcentage d'équipements publics, proportionellement aux m2 construits

AN

AV

WH

AN

VE ZE AV WH comparatif du pourcentage d'équipements publics, proportionellement aux m2 construits

AN

VE ZE Densité du bâti

AV

WH

AN

VE ZE AV WH comparatif du pourcentage d'équipements publics, proportionellement aux m2 construits

AN

VE ZE Densité du bâti

AV

WH

AN

VE ZE AV WH AN comparatif du pourcentage d'équipements publics, Comparison of the percentage of public facilities in proportion to the m2 built area proportionellement aux m2 construits

VER

AND

= Zermatt

AVO

ZER

VER

AN

WHI

Whistler-Blackcomb

WHI

= Whistler-Blackcomb + sourrounding urban sprawl

AND

= Andermatt Swiss Alps

AND

= Andermatt Swiss Alps (only “podium”)

190 | Comparative Assessment of Case Studies

VE ZE AV WH comparatif des kml pour desservir les m2 construits

AN

VE ZE AV WH comparatif des kml pour desservir les m2 construits

AN

ZER

AVO

WHI

COMPARATIVE DIAGRAMS

Comparative map inserted at the end of this book

191

Reference altitude

Topography

View

Land use

industrialization of skiing (1935 or 1950) in 2015

Built area (m2)

Total built density

Individual chalets over the total built area (m2) Buildings in natural danger zone

Public automobile network

Public pedestrian network

Investment type

Building Use Diversity

Second homes

192 | Comparative Assessment of Case Studies

residences hotels public facilities of which, rented (occupied beds) of which, vacant (unoccupied beds)

VERBIER

ZERMATT

AVORIAZ

WHISTLERBLACKCOMB (and surrounding urban sprawl)

ANDERMATT SWISS ALPS

1, 500 m

1 ,608 m

1 ,800 m

668 m

1 ,444 m

“Plateau” 680 m above the valley floor

Valley floor

“Plateau” 1,000 m above the valley floor

Valley floor

Valley floor

4,000 m summits

Valley floor and 4,000 m summits

Summits

Valley floor

Valley floor

5 ha 235 ha

18 ha 185 ha

0.1 ha 41 ha

0 ha 59 ha (310 ha)

0 ha 30 ha

963,000 m2

1,135,360 m2

290,000 m2

813,460 m 2

260,000 m 2

0.40

0.61

0.71

1.37

(0.2)

0.87

60 %

40 %

3%

0%

(90 %)

4%

41 %

38 %

6%

80 %

0%

48 km

35 km

0.6 km

6.9 km (61 km)

0.9 km

Discontinuous

Discontinuous

Continuous

Continuous (Discontinuous)

Continuous public space

Private investors – speculative

Private investors – speculative

Single private investor, planned (initial)

Public-private investor, planned (private)

Single private investor, planned

90.30 % 4.80 % 4.90 %

69.50 % 17.60 % 12.90 %

81.50 % 2.00 % 16.50 %

31 % 48 % 21 %

> 60 % 4% 96 %

> 40 % – –

81.5 %2 35 % 65 %

31 % (71 %) 100 % (env. 5 %) 0% (env. 95 %)

40 % 20 % 10 % + 30 %1 = 40 % 40 % 50 % 50 %

(1) infrastructure

(2) inc. tourist accom.

(71 %) (20 %) (9 %)

193

DENSIFICATION STRATEGIES Alpine Infrastructures Contextualized

196

As contradictory as it may seem at first glance, we will see that while mountain urbanization by increasing the built density will make it possible to sustainably preserve remaining virgin countryside, reducing new construction does not guarantee its protection. Of course, it is not a question of continuing to urbanize all remaining Alpine building zones by simply transforming the individual chalet into a hotel or other type of accommodation authorized by the Lex Weber. Aware of the extraordinary economic success of the individual chalet and the entrenchment of that Alpine myth in our consciousness, we will nonetheless show that the permanence of the Alpine town, and therefore the resolution of the various saturation levels analyzed in the previous chapters, demands an urban neotype: inhabited infrastructure comprising social amenities and public transport connected to existing mobility axes. Moreover, this urban model will establish a new relationship with the natural environment, even within the town. The aim is to fulfill the double requirement that the chalet has been unable to meet: to satisfy the incessant quest to live in the great outdoors, in harmony with nature, without at the same time destroying it. In order to experience, by modus operandi, the maximum viable size of this densification, the project will focus on the previous case study of Verbier. The purpose of our applied research is not simply to show how to solve the saturation of this Alpine town, nor, on the contrary, to pretend that it is possible to imagine an exportable prototype from this specific case, because the study corresponds uniquely to the natural and built context that is Verbier. The adopted approach aims to extract, from this representative example, the key factors that are essential as a basis for assessing the spreading Alpine town, now and in the future, as well as its link to urban mobility. The imagined inhabited infrastructure will highlight units of measurement that will not only verify and complete our theoretical questions, but also enable understanding of abstract notions such as qualitative Alpine density, contextual spatiality or the habitable scale for mountain territories resulting from the relationship among the infrastructure, program, and environment.

The Cable Car Route and the Location of Inhabited Infrastructure Our project is based on the idea of letting nature take its course, rather than hindering this innate process. This has been the case in recent decades, and continues today. The conceptual diagrams (schematic 1) summarize this initial position. Imagine a low-impact public transport system that overflies areas of natural hazards, leaving the land intact, without blocking the stunning views over 4,000-meter peaks, one of Verbier’s major qualities. Outside the risk zones and with optimized footprint, a new compact urban core is directly grafted onto this aerial transport, connecting it punctually to the building zone. This pairing creates an Alpine infrastructure neotype that will define specific relationships between transport, program, and environment. These initial sketches of an inhabited infrastructure are born from the will to preserve and sublimate the natural context while guaranteeing efficient access to the urban core. After considering all possible modes of travel, we chose the cable car for public transport within Verbier. One can summarize its main advantages as follows: easy passage across the landscape, largely immune to climate conditions at altitude, entertaining travel highlighting the panorama, small cabin size,105 small footprint, wide reach of the structural support system, ease of insertion into the existing context, very low energy consumption, very safe system, low noise, continuous transport without delays, and rapid and relatively low-cost installation and maintenance.106 105 The cabins for four to eight people recall the size of a car, thereby echoing the individuality of private transport. 106 Simas (2018) is a doctoral thesis from EPFL LAMU LASUR is entirely dedicated to this means of transport. Simas, F. (2018). For the technical explanation of cable car operation we benefit from the valuable collaboration of Epiney, V., Garaventa, Sion company. See also the summary table of the Association Chainon Manquant: http://telepherix.free.fr/data/ lespointsfortsdutramwayaerien.pdf

This second part will focus on presenting this new densification model and show how the complex project is a fundamental research tool. In the manner of an architectural or urban design competition, this section gives major importance to the project, which should speak for itself, the text being but an accessory to the drawing.

197

198 | Densification Strategies

Location plan

0

200 m

199

The overall plan and the cross section show the continuous route of the proposed public transport solution and its different altitudes, alternating aerial transport with crossings within the inhabited infrastructure. The new cable car that will replace the current bus service overflies the existing urbanization via a cable ring complete with spurs that punctually access the “center,” serving all of Verbier without flying over chalets and without obstructing the panoramic views. Installed on the remaining strategic public building plots, the five inhabited infrastructures are essential for ensuring smoothly functioning transport. Serving urbanized areas that have a maximum radius of 500 meters, they allow the walker, even in the steepest neighborhoods, to reach the new transport system on foot from his or her home. The length of each station is determined by the minimal changes of direction required by the geometry of the cable car ring. The infrastructures have the essential structural function of literally carrying the cable transport system, that is stretched between the five projected locations. The project creates mobility and exclusively pedestrian public spaces, independent of congested road networks. It’s worth noting that even if a change of mentality leads eventually to Verbier entirely banning the car, it’s considered unrealistic, in the short term, to completely exclude it from the transport options. The project therefore conceives of authorized automobile arrivals and departures on a regular basis, either to individual homes or to the inhabited infrastructures. Further travel within the urban area will be banned, all such journeys being undertaken exclusively by cable car. This variant has the advantage of clearing the main road network, thereby giving priority to the pedestrian, allowing home-tocable-car access within each neighborhood without being continuously disturbed by cars, as is the case today.

The new cable car will serve the whole of Verbier in a maximum of 15 minutes. Although the cable car is about half as fast as the car, it guarantees better performance due to the shortcuts taken by its route, which is not influenced by topographic or climate constraints. The comparison is even more convincing when the road network is saturated due to snowfall, fog, etc., or simply traffic congestion, from which the cable car is immune. One could be critical of the unusual length of the cable car station zones. They range from 150 to 550 meters depending on the inhabited infrastructure, while the standard is about 30 meters. Applying this shorter station length would indeed allow the possibility of serving the entire urban area more quickly. It would be unfortunate, however, to reduce the project to the mere technical resonance of the transport system as the difference of six minutes to serve Verbier does not justify it. Above all, the proposed new binomial transport-densification approach allows for far more rational land use than that which would result from a separate transport and densification program. As we’ll see below, the chosen solution makes it possible to fully integrate urban transport into the internal operation of the resort and into the spatial definition of the inhabited infrastructure. Similarly, the cable car route and installation of inhabited infrastructures not only results in a solution aimed at guaranteeing rational transport while respecting the natural constraints, but also achieves integration with the surrounding countryside. The hashed circles of the location plan show that access to this new public transport relates as much to the buildings as to the surrounding nature. Above all, the project includes within its objectives both the existing and the new cable transport planned by the commune. It not only serves the heart of the urban area but also becomes the missing link allowing access to several existing public transport stops that until now

Altitude alt. 1,865 1 865 m

Altitude alt. 1,500 1 500 m Altitude alt. 1,380 1 380 m

200 | Densification Strategies

have been discontinuous, creating an uninterrupted transport network (see large-scale pedestrian network orthophoto, p. 202). From the town, pedestrian access to the countryside becomes easier. Without being disturbed by automobile traffic, one can reach the pasturelands, forests, the Bisse du Levron, the higher rock walls and glaciers, or other Alpine settlements such as Bruson or the Tzoumaz. Hence the transport system establishes a new relationship with the natural Alpine environment, asserting itself as part of Verbier’s new urban identity: the country town.

Schematic 1

alt. 11,800 800 m Altitude Altitude alt. 1 6001,600 m m

Schematic 2: Developed cross section of the new public transport route

201

Contextualized Infrastructure Taking advantage of this ongoing networking throughout the territory, the project imagines a new link between mobility and program. Connected by the new transport system, the emblematic public facilities are all accessible from the lower urban valley without the passenger’s needing to move from his cabin. The project integrates and complements the new programs currently planned by the municipality of Bagnes.107 Each inhabited infrastructure includes public facilities, a cable car station, various other transport interfaces, and a hotel coupled with housing. Each one is characterized by its specific function, by its size  – up to 550 meters long  – as well as by its particular relationship to buildings, traffic movement, topography, altitude, the views, the countryside, etc. We focus here on the infrastructure development proposed for the top of the Esserts district. The site plan shows its location, at the edge of the red avalanche zone, between the forest and a chalet area, connected to other inhabited infrastructures and existing road networks. The variations in form stem from the study of cross sections from the report “Program-Transport-Nature.” The project first defines a typical section allowing the different activities to be rationally superimposed. This basic metric is derived from the simple application of dimensions and the standard carrier system of each construction. The ideal noncontextual arrangement of these boxes of different widths makes it possible to determine the potential common measurements between the structures, with a view to developing a

Large-scale pedestrian network, before/after project

202 | Densification Strategies

functional hybrid system for grouping them together. The imagined structural system consists of slabs supported at the periphery by frames arranged every 10 meters, and, inside, by columns distributed according to the standard grid specific to each one.108 This constitutes a common denominator for all the structures. The cable car station is located in the center of the infrastructure, where a full-width frame acts as a load-sharing element and thus ensures independence between the different load-bearing systems. A structural height of 2.20 meters of clear space is necessary to make it possible to create a parallel technical floor grouping all machinery at a single level and so rationally diverting the technical operations from the floor to avoid interfering with the public circulation. This structural element is accompanied by a spatial desire to highlight the station as the heart of the project, offering a large public area, named the strip, with a view of the Alpine panorama. This central space channels the cable car, which in the manner of a moving carpet, serves the public balcony or strip, animated by booths and people movement along the platforms. From the strip, users can access the private facilities located above or the public facilities below. Section 4 illustrates these principles. The different sections through the infrastructure across its length (sections 1 to 5), together with the elevation, make it possible to understand how it is formed and reformed to meet functional needs and adapt to the natural context. The infrastructure’s foundation level results from the optimal reference altitude for the strip, determined to allow a rational arrangement of the auditorium beneath, adapting to

the existing topography to require as little excavation as possible. The auditorium is therefore located where the slope can accommodate, with minimum excavation, a built volume with a width of 50 meters and a height of 23 meters (section 2). The structural frames at the base of this section extend forward to contain the larger, performance-oriented space. The level of the public terrace is also defined according to its mobility function. It must accommodate, on a large scale, the passage for the cable car, and also ensure connection of the project’s other transport interfaces to the existing road network. The extract from the plan of the different traffic flows illustrates how the infrastructure integrates existing and new transport systems. For example, the project allows direct access from the ski slopes to the Savoleyres cable car without having to pass through the building. Indeed, the infrastructure widens at either end to accommodate the additional interface of the cable car routes that climb toward the ski slopes or descend toward the town (sections 1 and 5). Here the strip is paralleled to signify, by the additional platform level, the beginning and end of the infrastructure unit. The depth of the structural frames varies to accommodate changes in slope of the natural ground, as shown by these different sections, following and echoing the mountain’s silhouette.

leaving the cable car – and without leaving the station – the hotel room is accessible; one can listen to a concert at the Verbier festival; leave on skis; go and drink an abricotine on the strip, then get back in the cable car; fly over the countryside; go to the market in Verbier village; take a course at the international school; even descend to the lower valley. The infrastructure enhances the possibilities by revealing the external context and becoming part of it. 107 The Verbier sector master plan indicates the new programs planned by the commune of Bagnes. Our project adds a new equestrian sports infrastructure for the Jumping International de Verbier and another to highlight the heritage of Verbier village. 108 Definition of the structural principle has benefited from the generous support of the office Structurame, Dr. Damien Dreier

Note that the strip’s chosen reference altitude results in varying exchanges between the public terrace and the countryside behind. In places the strip is open and merges with the natural ground level, allowing easy movement between the two; elsewhere it is partially or totally buried, placing the view of the mountain tops at center stage. These open-closed sequences along the continuous public space offer different relationships with the forest backdrop, more or less present, engulfing the structure to a greater or lesser degree. Where the strip is located in blue avalanche zones, the rear wall is thick and reinforced. Even if it is outside a flood risk zone, the structure’s shallow foundations allow water to flow beneath it. The project could equally incorporate water storage basins in order to reduce the flood risk to existing buildings below. The sections and interior views of the public terrace illustrate above all, the new spatial effect achieved by the interplay between transport and construction. If this infrastructure was until now a simple place of transit, here it becomes a place to stop and rest awhile, to contemplate the Alpine countryside. Above a collection of chalets one is aware of the particularities of the climate at an altitude of 1,800 meters: the invigorating wind, the intense light, and resulting colors, the perfume, and shade of the pine backdrop, the mist below. One discovers a new built density where transport establishes original links between diverse elements. Immediately upon 203

204 | Densification Strategies

Location plan of the Esserts

0

50 m

205

206 | Densification Strategies

Elevation 0

250 m

207

208 | Densification Strategies

Cross section 1 0

10 m

209

210 | Densification Strategies

Cross section 2 0

10 m

211

212 | Densification Strategies

Cross section 3 0

10 m

213

214 | Densification Strategies

Cross section 4 0

10 m

215

216 | Densification Strategies

Cross section 5 0

10 m

217

218 | Densification Strategies

Schematics showing different programs

Cross sections 6 0

10 m

219

View from the strip in summer

The floor plans show the ground surface occupied by each activity level and the organization of the inhabited infrastructure, as indicated by the cross sections, over its length of up to 470 meters. Their scale aims to show the principals of internal management of flows of users and the organization of space which results from that without, however, entering into details of the different types of apartment. The floor of the strip and its partial plan (shown at a smaller scale) allow visualization of people flows as a function of the intimacy of the activities. It is clear that the cable car doesn’t only link one infrastructure to another but fully participates in internal circulation. When carrying shopping or skis that one doesn’t wish to carry over almost 500 meters, one can take the cable car. This provides a slow-moving platform running the length of the building, that also provides easy access to the different connections heading up or down. Located in accordance with the  applicable safety standards, these vertical transport connections operate at different rhythms, according to their destinations. At the rear, barely perceptible (being buried in the width of the portal frames) private staircases are installed at every second frame, provide access to the apartments 220 | Densification Strategies

above. On either side of the cable car, according to the sense of travel, that is, up or down, there are escalators and elevators at every fifth portal frame. These provide access to the public facilities located below. This vertical public access is doubled up in places to cope with significant increases in traffic coming from other cable cars or from the auditorium. The level containing apartments and the cable car station for Savoleyres demonstrates the functional flexibility offered by the infrastructure. Note the new relationships that form between transport and habitable infrastructure: with the hotel directly accessible from the cable car terminus, one can practically access the ski slope from one’s room. Due to the building’s structural layout, a typical room measures 23 square meters, and comes with a splendid view, notwithstanding its orientation. In addition the rooms can be grouped as generous suites or dormitories. The corridor, lacking windows in most hotels, is naturally lit by the openings for vertical stairwell connections that form small waiting areas with forest views. The full-width residences, managed by the hotel, can be long and narrow, in the image of the minimum mountain habitat as conceived by designers like Charlotte Perriand. Alternatively, they extend across several spans, in plan and in section, to attain the dimensions of a

luxurious individual chalet. Similarly the exteriors can vary from one balcony to a generous loggia. The residence’s 17-meter depth, far larger than that found in the city, benefits from the vibrant light at an altitude of 1,800 meters and the southern orientation. This maximum dimension, guaranteeing natural lighting along the width of the apartment, is in agreement with Labro’s philosophy for apartments of this depth and orientation at very similar altitudes. It should also be noted that the inclination of the roof frames and the idea of an insulating air space to keep the snow intact for as long as possible are also inspired by the architect’s detailed studies of designs for roofs at Avoriaz. The inhabited infrastructure’s residences are characterized by this width but above all, they are distinguished by the size and span of the facade structure (usually smaller in a domestic building), as well as by their relation to the adjoining public transport. The external context is amplified by the structure, the Alpine panorama in front and the forest behind placed center stage by these new forms. From an apartment balcony, hidden from view and out of direct sunlight, one can observe, a few floors down, the animation of people walking or seated on the terrace, as well as the other infrastructure developments connected by cable car.

Throughout the transport spaces, and particularly from the strip, we feel the solidity of its large residential structure, and the scale of the territory, while discovering new links with the Alpine context.

Perspective from an appartement living room

221

222 | Densification Strategies

Plan showing the principle of internal movements, strip level, and hotel/residences

0

25 m

223

View from the strip in winter

A Project at the Scale of the Territory The inhabited infrastructures presented above demonstrate that if the existing mobility system in Verbier was until now a vector for urban sprawl, by redefining itself it can become a guarantee of urban quality at strategic sites. The project proposes new methods for densification, which add 250,000 square meters of built surface to the existing urbanization (20 percent more than actual), using only 150,000 square meters of land, or 16 percent of the total surface area classified as the building zone. To achieve the same increase of built surface the existing model would require four times more land than the proposed project. This would increase to fourteen times more if we only counted the effective footprint of the inhabited infrastructure, which would be fairer to the extent that the included cable car transport does not require additional surface as would be the case of the existing model. The inhabited infrastructure has a built density of 1.7 while that of the existing model is on average 0.4; the new overall built density in Verbier with the project would be 0.5. As a reminder, the built density of the planned Bruson project is about 0.30, that of Verbier village 0.41; that of Zermatt is 0.615; Andermatt has 0.87 (without the podium); Avoriaz, 0.71; and Whistler 224 | Densification Strategies

Blackcomb, 1.37 (not counting the surrounding urban sprawl). In addition, inhabited infrastructures do not require an extension of the road network, simply a few adaptations to connect to it. While the project allows more rational land use and transport solutions, the size of the proposed works may give rise to some regrets; nostalgia for the individual chalet, its small size, its domestic and private character, which represent the Alpine ideal for most people. In response, we answer that the isolated chalet no longer exists in Verbier. The scale of the town is not that of the individual chalet, but that resulting from its multiplication together with the infrastructures necessary to serve it: roads, paths, public lighting, hedges separating private parcels from the public domain, etc. However, the chalet model deserves credit for its overall architectural unity and for anchoring an Alpine reference model in people’s minds, even though, as we have shown, the urban consequences are disastrous. Nonetheless, the project underlines that it is not enough to locate the high buildings of Avoriaz on Verbier’s remaining building land. Built density would certainly be a little improved, but at the expense of the unity achieved by the existing housing model. Above all, this would not solve the current mobility problems. In order to avoid confrontation between two architectural languages addressing the same

issue, and to relieve the saturated road network, the contextualized infrastructure solution refers to a diversity and size justified by the required scale of transport. High-altitude lands have long been colonized by large infrastructure such as viaducts, tunnels, covered galleries, etc; however, we never compare the scale of the chalet with the scale of these infrastructures because the two models do not have the same function. As such, our project is deliberately defined as a civil engineering and not as a large building: its size must be read in relation to the required territorial scale of transport.

225

84 ha 250,000 m2 0.3 density

17 km roads

Discontinuous Footpaths

Chalet model according to existing T3 zone (p. 226) Inhabited Infrastructure model (p. 227)

226 | Densification Strategies

15 ha 250,000 m2 1.7 density

0 km roads

Continuous Footpaths

227

Project Drivers Even if the inhabited infrastructures are contextualized and not exportable as such to other Alpine cities, it is possible to define key project drivers as follows: – The densification of Alpine towns should not only be conceived to add built habitable surface on the remaining plots but above all as a strategy to solve the various current saturation levels and to guarantee their sustainability while protecting the surrounding countryside. – Densification will be based, as a matter of priority, on available public land to allow for simplified planning and implementation. – Densification of the remaining building plots cannot continue to be based on the low built density of the current dominant mode, the individual chalet. It must propose a new urban model that guarantees rational occupation of the territory. – This neotype must be conceived by regrouping, within a compact habitable entity, pedestrian public space, transport infrastructure, and climate-ori-

ented design, according to the specific and natural context of each Alpine location. – The section drawing will constitute a fundamental tool for defining the organization of this new grouping and its link to the context. – New public transport routes must be independent of the car. A global concept of hierarchization of different traffic flows – existing and new – will need to be established, differentiating them while allowing periodic links via exchange interfaces. – The new public transport needs to conceive a continuous mobility solution that efficiently serves the new densification and the entire preexisting urbanization internally and, on a larger scale, that externally connects, without interruption, to existing public transport; providing transport toward the town and transport toward nature.

250,000 m2 by applying the current Verbier model to colonize adjacent virgin environment

228 | Densification Strategies

Hyperconnected Nature This study endeavors to introduce a new appreciation of Alpine towns. Contextualized infrastructures refer to a diversity and size justified by the scale of contemporary mobility; our research makes it possible to think of them as towns in their own right and not simply as ski resorts. Our observations are not intended to provide a definitive and fixed solution to the problem. We immediately come up against a major question, that of the proposed densification, that will one day reach its limits. In fifty years, the inhabited infrastructure may no longer be able to contain future urban development. In this case, what future strategies could then ensure the preservation of virgin countryside?

located on a major existing transport axis. The examples of Bourg-Saint-Pierre or San Bernardino illustrate a heritage that risks becoming obsolete; thinking like skiing villages, such small entities have no future. Nonetheless, developed because of their privileged transport links to urbanization, they present an important territorial asset. Would not the densification of these small, hyperconnected Alpine settlements constitute the only chance of guaranteeing their durability? Would not the proposed strategy, conceived as a second-chance densification of Alpine towns, avoid long-term colonization of virgin countryside that is still untouched?

Our research has shown that the question of connectivity in Alpine urbanization is now fundamental to sustainable development. Thus, hyperconnected towns, even hamlets, become strategic places. Our definition of the Alpine town leads us to rethink the future of some small neglected and idle mountain urbanities in different terms, even though they are

250,000 m2 by densifying Verbier using inhabited infrastructures

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VERBIER CASE STUDY OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS: CARTOGRAPHY: Carte Dufour (extrait région Aoste) Carte Siegfried (extrait région Martigny) Carte 1961, Service Topographie Fédéral, Berne Carte 1989, Bâle, Huber Verlag. Carte 2014, Swisstopo (swiss map online) Plans des SIB (services industriels de Bagnes) contenant toutes les données répertoriées de Verbier. Site officiel commune de Bagnes, http://geo.ciges.ch/bagnes/ Commune de Bagnes. 1960, 1977. Plan des zones (1997). Plan affectation des zones Commune de Bagnes. 1998. Règlement de construction Verbier­Station. Commune de Bagnes. 2012. Schéma directeur, secteur de Verbier (updated in 2014) Règlement communal, http://bagnes.ch/fr/Officiel/Reglements-Directives/. Plans État du Valais, notamment carte avec ouvrages de protections des avalanches Site officiel du canton du Valais, http://www.vs.ch/Navig/navig. asp?MenuID=22615&language=fr. Données GeoVITe – ETH Geodata Portal. OTHERS: Dumoulin, Christophe. 2010. “Vision 2020 Verbier, Commune de Bagnes,” presentation given at the second conference Verbier GPS (Ver­ bier Green Pioneering Summit), December 10, https://www.yumpu.com/ fr/document/view/8316958/verbier-gps-10122010. Office du tourisme Bagnes. 2012–13. Statistiques touristiques. Téléverbier. 2014. Rapport annuel 2014. http://www.verbierbooking.ch/multimedia/docs/2015/03/Rapport_ annuel_2013_2014_mini_OK.pdf BOOKS AND RESEARCH REPORTS: Arcalpin. 2006. Verbier, enquête auprès des propriétaires de résidences secondaires, étude mandatée par la commune de Bagnes. Balleys, Damien, and Alexandre Vergères. 2008. “Verbier bouge: Un parking de captage comme nouvelle porte d’entrée dans la station (VS).” Master’s thesis, EPFL–ENAC. Barbier, Jacques, M.-T. de Nomazy, and Léopold Veuve. 1974. Stations touristiques de montagne: éléments pour une politique de planification. Lausanne: EPFL. Barras, Charles-V. 1987. Le développement régional à motricité tour­ istique: de la région polarisée à la région­système. Fribourg: Éditions universitaires. Beth, Stéphane. 2011. “État des lieux et propositions d’amélioration de la gestion durable dans la commune de Bagnes.” Bachelor’s thesis, HES-SO Valais-Wallis. Deslarzes, Bertrand. 1998. Verbier, tourisme et mutation: 1930–1960. Fribourg: Faim de siècle. Hoefliger, Julien, Stéphane Martin, and Philippe D. Mondada. 1994. Le Verbier Festival & Academy, Lausanne: HEC Lausanne.

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Hoffmann, Damien. 1993. “La station de montagne de Verbier: aspects et impacts socio-économiques, spatiaux et socio-culturels du développement touristique depuis 1950.” Master’s thesis, Université de Genève, département de géographie. Imesch, Johan. 2010. Restructuration et durabilité du tourisme de ski: Enjeux pour la destination “Au Pays du Saint­Bernard” (Valais, Suisse). Working Paper no. 4. Sion: Institut universitaire Kurt Bösch. Kauffmann, Virginie. 2002. “Transports urbains et aménagement dans une station de montagne: le cas de Verbier.” Master’s thesis, Université de Neuchâtel, Institut de géographie. Kaufmann, Vincent, and Sébastien Munafò. 2010. Vers une mobilité plus durable à Verbier. Lausanne: EPFL, TRACE, LASUR. Landolt & Cie SA, Transports de Martigny et régions, and 6t-Bureau de recherche. 2014. Étude sur la mobilité alpine en Suisse Romande: station de Verbier, https://documents.epfl.ch/groups/c/ch/chaire-landoltet-cie/www/Verbier/2013%20VMFI%20Verbier_Ri_rapport_140506.pdf. Meili, Armin. 1945. Bauliche Sanierung von hotels und Kurorten/Assai­ nissement technique d’hôtels et de stations touristiques, Rapport final. Erlenbach-Zürich: Verlag für Architektur. Serquet, Gaëlle, and Philippe Thalmann. 2012. Impacts des change­ ments climatiques pour le tourisme à Verbier. Lausanne: EPFL -REME. Seuret, Marie-Lyse. 2011. “La mobilité à Verbier, une question de durabilité.” Master’s thesis, Université de Lausanne, Institut de géographie. SuperVerbier s.a. 1970. Le projet du complexe touristique “SuperVerbier”, Bulletin d’information no. 3. Thurre, Pascal. 1986. Verbier. Geneva: Slatkine. Urbaplan, Transportplan, and Drosera. 2007. Verbier, projet 2010–2015, Redonner un avenir à la station, Conception des espaces publics. Canton du Valais, commune de Bagnes. PRESS, RADIO, TELEVISION: Bagnes infos. 2010. “La station en pleine mutation,” Journal de l’admin­ istration communale, no. 14. Bourget, Linda. 2011. “Victime de son succès, Verbier doit se réinventer,” L’Hebdo, February 10, 36–40. Buchs, Jean-Philippe. 2011. “Pour Verbier, Bagnes se lance dans de grands travaux,” Bilan, December 6. Caviezel, Armand. 1969. “Verbier agricole,” Horizons, April 4, 1969, http:// www.rts.ch/archives/tv/information/horizons/3446778-verbier-agricole. html, Filliez, Xavier. 2011. “Verbier atteint son point de saturation,” Le Temps, May 5. Hoffstetter, Matthieu. 2013. “Nouveaux cocons de luxe au pied des pistes,” Bilan, December 27. Monay, Patrick. 2016. “Une Genevoise oblige Verbier à revoir la planification de son domaine skiable,” 24 heures, June 23. Parvex, Marie. 2011b. “Trop chère, Verbier se vide de ses indigènes,” Le Temps, December 24. Parvex, Marie. 2012. “À Verbier, les défis d’un tourisme en mutation,” Le Temps, October 10. RTS info. 2012. “Verbier Festival,” Le 19h30, July 20, http://www.rts.ch/ video/info/journal-19h30/4149150-vs-le-verbier-festival-demarre-vendredi-avec-cinquante-concerts-sur-dix-sept-jours-par-les-meilleursmusiciens-classiques-internationaux.html. RTS info. 2012. “Concours hippique international de Verbier,” Le 19h30, August 24, http://www.rts.ch/video/info/journal-19h30/4221225-vs-leconcours-hippique-international-de-verbier-a-demarre-mercredi.html. RTS. 1ere. 2013. “Verbier, version alpine décentralisée de la City londonienne?” Forum, April 22, http://www.rts.ch/la-1ere/programmes/forum/4820088-forum-du-22-04-2013.html#4820079. RTS info. 2014. “Les traders sont de plus en plus nombreux à fuir les capitales de la finance pour le calme des Alpes,” Le journal du Dimanche, April 13, http://www.rts.ch/play/tv/le-journal-du-dimanche/video/les-traders-sont-de-plus-en-plus-nombreux-a-fuir-les-capitales-de-la-financepour-le-calme-des-alpes?id=5770353. Sykes, Julian. 2011. “Verbier, une station qui se mue en atelier musical,” Le Temps, March 6.

ZERMATT CASE STUDY OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS: CARTOGRAPHY: Carte Siegfried Carte 2014, Swisstopo (swiss map online) Plan cadastral Geomatik contenant toutes les données répertoriées de Zermatt (niveau de détail: échelle 1/500). Plans État du Valais, notamment carte avec ouvrages de protections des avalanches Site officiel du canton du Valais, http://www.vs.ch/Navig/navig. asp?MenuID=22615&language=fr Données GeoVITe – ETH Geodata Portal Atlas de la Suisse en 3D, ETH

Official website of the Commune de Zermatt, http://valgis.ch/weboffice/ synserver?client=&project=zermatt Commune de Zermatt. 1997, 1999. 60­OP Zermatt dorf 1:2000. Zonennutzungsplan. Commune de Zermatt. 1999, 2004, 2010. Bau­ und Zonenreglement (Art.46), http://gemeinde.zermatt.ch/pdf/reglement/bau-und-zonenreglement2010.pdf Commune de Zermatt. 1990, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009. Verkehrsre­ glement (pp. 24–25). http://gemeinde.zermatt.ch/pdf/reglement/verkehrsreglement2009.pdf OTHERS: Maurer Söhne. 2014. Un nouveau transport public à Zermatt, unpublished document kindly provided by the municipality. Infrastructure de Zermatt. 2012. Unpublished document listing the park’s real estate, equipments, and data on ski area, kindly provided by the municipality. Commune de Zermatt. 2007. “Sechs Verkehrssysteme bieten sich an,” Zermatt Inside 5, no. 6 (December): 1–4, http://inside.zermatt.ch/pdf/ZermattInside-2007-6.pdf. Office fédéral de météorologie et de climatologie MétéoSuisse, Normes climatologiques Zermatt, http://www.meteosuisse.admin.ch/ product/output/climate-data/climate-diagrams-normal-values-station-processing/ZER/climsheet_ZER_np6190_f.pdf. BOOKS AND RESEARCH REPORTS: ATE [Association transport et environnement]. 2011. Guide écomo­ bilité: 14 stations de montagne sous la loupe, https://www.are.admin.ch/ dam/are/it/dokumente/verkehr/publikationen/rating_mobil_oekologisch. pdf.download.pdf/rating_guide_ecomobilite.pdf. Caviezel, Nott. 2011. “Alpine Suburbs: Der Zermatter Gemeindepräsident Christoph Bürgin im Gespräch,” Werk, bauen+wohnen 98, no. 9: 42–45. Perren, Remo, Thomas Andenmatten, and Brig-Visp-Zermatt-Bahn. 1991. Zermatt­Bahn: vom Tal zum Berg. Visp: Rotten Verlag. Rappaz, Pauline. 2013. “Tunnels du Lötschberg,” Tracés, no. 15–16. Roy, Johann, Delphine Guex, and Géraldine Sauthier. 2012. La trajec­ toire historique du développement touristique de Zermatt entre 1850 et 2010. Working Paper no. 3. Sion: Institut universitaire Kurt Bösch. Schlegel, Nicole Brändle, Marco Caprarese, and Stefan Roggo. 2011. Le tourisme en Suisse: Stations de ski en concurrence. Zurich: Economic Research du Credit Suisse. https://www.letemps.ch/sites/default/files/media/2013/12/22/2.1.2529942618.pdf?uuid=HbSMKms2EeOSERrEoZAjkA. William, Stephen, and Alan A. Lew. 2015. Tourism Geography: Critical Understandings of Place, Space and Experience. New York: Routledge. Zermatt-Bergbahnen AG. 2005. The Story of a Fascination. Visp: Rotten. GENERAL PRESS: Jubin, Serge. 2011. “Zermatt propose la mobilité la plus durable de Suisse,” Le Temps, September 5. Monnat, Lucie. 2014. “Zermatt réfléchit à une rame de métro aérienne,” 24 heures, December 22. Schiendorfer, Andreas. 2012. “Zermatt, l’élégance de la vallée perdue.”

AVORIAZ CASE STUDY OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS: MAPS: Map 2014, IGN, Institut National de l’information géographique et forestière Terrain in 3D, IGN, Institut National de l’information géographique et forestière PLANS AVORIAZ, DOCUMENTS SOURCES: Archives départementales de la Haute-Savoie, inventaire du fond Jacques Labro (n°153J); consultation sur place. www.archives.cg74.frw2 Base design courtesy of AAA, Atelier d’Architecture d’Avoriaz, M. Simon Cloutier. PLU (Plan local d’urbanisme) and local government. Commune Morzine. 2014. Étude des flux logistiques des personnes et des marchandises. Inventaire général du Patrimoine Culturel de Rhône­Alpes. Répertorisation d’Avoriaz par quartiers et par bâtiments, http://patrimoine.rhonealpes.fr/ recherche/globale?texte=avoriaz&type= et http://www.parcoursinventaire.rhonealpes.fr/stationski/-La-station-fonctionnelle-revele-le-.html. Database of the ministère de la Culture: http:// w w w. c u l t u r e . g o u v. f r/ p u b l i c / m i s t r a l / m e r i m e e _ f r ?A C T I O N = C H E R C H E R & F I E L D_4 = A U T R & VA L U E _4 = L A B R O % 2 0 JACQUES

OTHERS: Commune de Morzine. 1997. Plan de prévention des risques naturels prévisibles, P.P.R, Rapport de présentation. Inspection générale de l’administration et al. 2010. Bilan de la loi du 9 janvier 1985 relative au développement et à la protection de la mon­ tagne, http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/storage/rapports-publics/154000657.pdf. Office tourisme Avoriaz, https://www.avoriaz.com. BOOKS AND RESEARCH REPORTS: Bianco, François. 2014. “Morzine-Avoriaz: densification d’une infrastructure existante. Le téléphérique des Prodains comme nouvelle porte d’entrée pour la station (F).” Master’s thesis, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Bremond, Gérard, Lionel Chouchan, Jean Vuarnet, and Jean-Claude Romer. 1992. Avoriaz Memories: Festival international du film fantastique d’avoriaz 1973–1992. [No city]: Media planning. Bourreau, Chantal. 2004. Avoriaz, l’aventure fantastique. Montmélian: La Fontaine de Siloé. Bouygues, Astrid, Frèd Blanc, and Robert Blum. 2006. Téléphérique pour l’enfance. Paris: Nouvelles Éditions Place. Dufresne, Gérard, and Pascale Blin. 1994. Avoriaz ou la transformation d’un paysage. Paris: Les Editions de l’Epure. Knafou, Rémy. 1978. Les stations intégrées de sports d’hiver des Alpes françaises. Paris: Masson. Lyon-Caen, Jean-François. 2003. Montagnes: Territoires d’invention. Grenoble: École d’architecture de Grenoble. Lyon-Caen, Jean-François. 2012. Jacques Labro, architecte urbaniste: de l’imaginaire au réel. Annecy: CAUE Haute-Savoie. Mopty, Timoté. 2015. “Cités Alpines, la fin de l’hégémonie touristique dans les stations de haute-montagne,” Master’s thesis, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Picard, Gilbert. 1990. Avoriaz: Les Fantômes du Festival. Paris: Hermé. Révil, Philippe. 2004. Les pionniers de l’or blanc. Grenoble: Glénat. Souvy, Cyriel. 1978. Morzine au fil des siècles, Morzine: éditions Jean Vuarnet. Wolgensinger, Bernard. 1981. Maisons en montagne. Paris: Éditions du Moniteur et Office du livre. Chalet in Avoriaz, pp. 32–33. ARTICLES: A&S. 2008. “Avoriaz, une station intemporelle,” Architecture et Stations, no. 1: 10–15. A&S. 2009. “Avoriaz, la station prend un nouvel élan,” Architecture et Stations, no. 2: 20–22. Bourreau, Chantal. 2007. “Avoriaz, de l’alpage à la station,” in Balades culturelles entre vallée d’Aoste et Haute­Savoie: Avoriaz, Morzine, Archi­ tectures d’une station, 17–44. Annecy: CAUE de la Haute-Savoie. Brémond, Gérard, et al. 1966. “Aménagement du plateau d’Avoriaz, Haute Savoie,” Constructions en montagne, revue Architecture d’aujo­ urd’hui 36, no. 126: 28–31. Collectif d’architecture. 1969. “Avoriaz 1800 (Haute-Savoie),” Stations touristiques, revue Techniques et Architecture 30, no. 4: 78–81. Collectif d’architecture. 1970. “Avoriaz: les Dromonts, les Essaveaux,” Recherche & Architecture, no. 2: 35–52. Delemontey, Yvan. 2013. “Marcel Breuer à Flaine: Une station de ski préfabriquée,” revue AMC, no. 228: 83–92. Graf, Franz, et al. 2010. Station de ski de Flaine: Réhabilitation et extension d’une structure hôtelière, atelier Graf BA5 2010–2011, EPFL–ENAC–TSAM. Lefebvre, Virginie. 2004. “Les stations de ski françaises des années soixante et leur évolution: Les exemples de Flaine et d’Avoriaz.” In Costruire a Cervinia e altrove, edited by Luca Moretto et al., 149–58. Quart: Musumeci. Lefebvre, Virginie. 2007. “La montagne des touristes et des vacanciers,” in Imaginaires d’infrastructure, edited by Dominique Rouillard, 145–57. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009. Lyon-Caen, Jean-François. 2004. “Naissances des stations de sports d’hiver alpines,” in Costruire a Cervinia e altrove, edited by Luca Moretto, 139–47. Quart: Musumeci. Meier, Philippe. 2004. Densifier le paysage, des logements pour la sta­ tion de Flaine. Lausanne: EPFL–ENAC. Palierse, Christophe. 2007. “Pierre et Vacances: les défis de la quarantaine,” Les Échos, February 6, 17. Pierre et Vacances. 2008. “Avoriaz, l’éternelle,” promotional brochure for new construction. Puthod, Dominique, and Catherine Thévenard-Puthod. 2011. “Avoriaz: Un laboratoire d’innovations managériales dans le domaine du tourisme de sports d’hiver,” Pensée et pratiques du management en France, in­ ventaire et perspectives 19e­21e siècles, http://mtpf.mlab-innovation. net/fr/. Vuarnet, Jean, et al. 1961. “Avoriaz, future station internationale,” Le Ski, no. 173 (July): 209–35.

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PRESS, RADIO, TELEVISION: Ansermoz, Claude. 2015. “Avoriaz, toujours aussi fantastique,” 24 heures, November 1, https://www.24heures.ch/culture/voyages/ Avoriaz-toujours-aussi-fantastique/story/20344324. Labro, Jacques. 2014. “L’architecture à l’épreuve du site: Jacques Labro à Avoriaz,” In Situ, revue des Patrimoines, http://insitu.revues.org/11182. Lecomte, Christian. 2012. “Le lifting d’Avoriaz fait polémique,” Le Temps, March 10. Manceau, Jean-Jacques. 2007. “Avoriaz en piste pour le haut de gamme,” L’Expansion, October, 122–23. RTS. 2012. “La station de ski d’Avoriaz fait peau neuve,” RTS Le Journal du matin, January 24.  RTS info. 2012. “Les stations suisses devront chercher des modèles alternatifs au développement des résidences secondaires,” RTS info, March 18, http://www.rts.ch/video/info/journal-19h30/3863844-les-stations-suisses-devront-chercher-des-modeles-alternatifs-au-developpement-des-residences-secondaires.html. VSD. 1987. “Avoriaz, 15 ans d’horreur et on en redemande,” VSD, no. 489. Vuarnet, Jean. 1966. “La nouvelle station d’Avoriaz,” Ina.fr, http://www. dailymotion.com/video/xfdz1f_la-nouvelle-station-d-avoriaz_news EXHIBITIONS: La neige et l’architecte: Stations de sports d’hiver en Rhône­Alpes, exhibition space Le plateau, Lyon, September 7 to October 10, 2012.

WHISTLER-BLACKCOMB CASE STUDY OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS: MAPS: Resort Municipality of Whistler, Whistler Map: https://www.whistler.ca/services/maps (December 2016) (corresponds to the Swiss Federal Office of Topography Swisstopo) WUDCA, Whistler Urban Development Containment Area et RMOW, zoning map: https://www.whistler.ca/municipal-gov/strategies-and-plans/ocp (December 2016) (corresponds to the cantonal construction plan and the municipal utilization plan in Switzerland) Reports on energy, transport etc. available on the website Municipality of Whistler, in particular: https://www.whistler.ca/sites/default/files/related/community_energy_ and_climate_action_plan.pdf https://www.whistler.ca/sites/default/files/related/rmow_2014_annual_ energy_-_ghg_emissions_performance Information on public bus services, in particular bus schedules of the Whistler region: http://bctransit.com/servlet/documents/maps/ 1403640576590 Plans of natural hazards: Maps.slrd.bc.ca All other plans that deemed necessary to analyze the project and not available from the authorities were made available to us by Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners Ltd. OTHER DOCUMENTS: Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners Ltd. 2013. “Conférence président Paul Mathews à Kaoponik, Serbie, juin 2013,” unpublished document, access provided by the company. Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners Ltd. 2014. “The Whistler Story,” unpublished document, access provided by the company. Vanat, Laurent. 2006. “Whistler Blackcomb, station unique?” Montagne Leaders, no. 194 (March): 38–47. Vanat, Laurent. 2013. 2013 International Report on Snow and Mountain Tourism: Overview of the Key Industry Figures for Ski Resorts. Geneva: Vanat. Barnett, Bob. 2000. Whistler: History in the Making. Whistler: Pique Publishing Inc. Lloyd Kyi, Tanya. 2004. Whistler. Canada Series. Vancouver: Whitecap Books. Mc Mahon, Ann. 1980. The Whistler Story. West Vancouver: A. McMahon. Beaudry, Michel. 2007. Whistler: Against all Odds. Missoula: Mountain Press Publishing Company. Vogler, Stephen. 2009. Only in Whistler: Tales of a Mountain Town. Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing.

ANDERMATT CASE STUDY OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS: CARTOGRAPHY: Map 1928, Topographischer Atlas der Schweiz, Bern Map 1932, Topographischer Atlas der Schweiz, Bern Map 1951, Schweizerische Alpenposten, Bern Map 1982, Ski tours and hiking map, Kümmerly+Frey Map 2014, Swisstopo (swiss map online) Data GeoVITe – ETH Geodata Portal

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CANTONAL AND COMMUNAL DOCUMENTS: Canton d’Uri. 1999. Auszug Richtplan. Canton d’Uri. 2006. Kantonaler Richtplan. Richtplananpassung Urserntal vom Regierungsrat erlassen. Canton d’Uri. 2006. Andermatt Tourismus Resort. Anforderungen an die Masterplannung von Seiten Kanton Uri. Canton d’Uri. 2006. Richtplananpassung Urserntal, Nachhaltigkeits­ beurteilung. (Project Andermatt Swiss Alps). Canton d’Uri, commune d’Andermatt. 2006. Tourismusresort Ander­ matt. Anforderungen an die Quartiergestaltungspläne. Canton d’Uri, commune d’Andermatt. 2006. Teilzonenplan Tourismus­ resort Änderungsplan. Canton d’Uri et S-ce. 2008. Regionales Gesamtverkehrskonzept Ursern. Synthesebericht. Commune d’Andermatt et Basler+Partner. 2008. Verkehrskonzept Andermatt. Schlussbericht. Canton d’Uri, commune d’Andermatt. 2006, 2009, and 2011. Zonen­ plan Siedlung. Commune d’Andermatt. 2013. Bau­ und Zonenordung (BZO). OTHERS: Canton d’Uri website: http://www.ur.ch/de/verwaltung/dienstleistungen/ welcome.php?dienst_id=3913&page=7 Office fédéral de la culture OFC, ISOS-Inventaire fédéral des sites construits d’importance nationale à protéger en Suisse. ISOS, Kanton Uri. 1994. Inventar der schützenswerten Ortsbilder der Schweiz. Andermatt: ISOS 4193 also accessible at https://dav0.bgdi.admin.ch/isos/ISOS_4193.pdf Office fédéral du développement territorial ARE. 2012. Tourisme et développement durable. Bonnes pratiques et pistes d’action. Berne: OFCL, Publications fédérales. Other documents specific to the new Andermatt project Swiss Alps: All other document sources that we consider necessary for an analysis of the new project (from 2006 to today) were kindly provided to us by ASA AG. Basler & Hofmann. 2008. Tourismusresort Andermatt Umwelt­ verträglichkeitsbericht. Genehmigungsexemplar. Denniston. 2007. Podium levels. TEAMverkehr. 2008. Andermatt Tourismusresort. Verkehrslonzept Re­ sort. Genehmigungsexemplar. TEAMverkehr. 2008. Andermatt Tourismusresort. Parkfeldberechnung / Verkehserzeugung. Genehmigungsexemplar. Vogt Landschaftsarchitekten. 2008. Tourismusresort AndermattBeri­ cht zum Landschaftskonzept. Matrisk, Geotest. 2011. Andermatt Tourismus Resort, Golfplatz. Gefähr­ dung durch Steinschlag, Murgang, Hangmuren und Lawinen. Risikoana­ lyse. Report no. 23110340.1. BOOKS AND RESEARCH REPORTS: Andermatt: ZGKS. 1992. 1967–1992, 25 années Centre d’instruction pour le combat en montagne. Andermatt: CICM. Armasuisse. 2004. Gotthardfestung, Foppa Grande. Berne: VBS armasuisse. Burkhardt, Hansjakob. 2003. AW San Carlo. Meggen: Fischerdörfli Verlag. Keller, Silvio, Maurice Lovisa, and Thomas Bitterli, eds. 2005. Mil­ itärische Denkmäler in den Kantonen Uri, Schwyz und Zug. Inventar der Kampf­ und Führungsbauten. Berne: EIDG. Departement für Verteidigung, Bevölkerungsschutz und Sport. Kunz, Valeria. 2008. Vom Bergler zum Greenkeeper? Strukturelle Um­ brüche in Andermatt. Berne: Institut für Soziologie. Kruker, Robert, and Verena Meier. 2012. Andermatt im Umbruch: vom Waffenplatz zum Luxusresort. Zurich: Rotpunktverlag. Patrimoine Suisse. (2004). La culture architecturale à Andermatt – un voyage à la découverte de l’Urserntal. Série Découvrir le patrimoine. Scheuerer, Silvia. 2011. Das Bellevue in Andermatt 1872–1986: Ein Hotel erzählt Tourismus­ und Kulturgeschichte. Altdorf: Gisler Verlag. Wirz, Heinz. 2012. “Andermatt Swiss Alps: Resort Center and 4 Apartment Buildings,” in Miroslav Šik: Architektur 1988–2012, 111–19. Lucerne: Quart. Ziegler, Peter. 1986. 100 Jahre Gotthard­Festung: 1885–1985. Andermatt: Festungsbrigade 23. ARTICLES: VLP-ASPAN. 2014. “Approbation de l’aménagement du domaine skiable Andermatt-Sedrun,” http://www.vlp-aspan.ch/fr/actualite/approbation-de-lamenagementdu-domaine-skiable-andermatt-sedrun VLP-ASPAN. 2015. “Complexe touristique d’Andermatt, bilan après 10 ans de planification,” http://www.vlp-aspan.ch/fr/actualite/complexe-touristique-dandermattbilan-apres-10-ans-de-planification Bösch I. 2008. “Tourismus-Resort Andermatt: Die Wohnungen in den Zentrumszonen,” Hochparterre.wettbewerbe 5/2008. Marti, R. 2007. “Bildhübsches Andermatt,” Hochparterre 11/2007. Marti, R. 2009. “Diskussion ums Podium,” Hochparterre 6–7/2009.

Patrimonie Suisse, Hoctparterre. 2009. “Architecture et tourisme - les grands projets sous la loupe. Résumé des interventions de la conférence du 29 janvier 2009.” Pia, Fiona. 2015. “Le projet complexe comme stratégie contemporaine de densification des Alpes. Le cas d’Andermatt Swiss Alps,” in Territoires en débat, Mattiucci, C. et De Marco, R., Trente, Professional Dreamers (forthcoming). Siegrist, D. 2008. “Andermatt kann Sawiris nicht verkraften: Retten Investoren aus Ägypten und Russland das Schweizer Berggebiet?” Tages­Anzeiger. PRESS, RADIO, TELEVISION: La majorité des articles sur Andermatt Swiss Alps (depuis 2012) sont répertoriés sur le site internet de ASA AG: http://www.andermatt-swissalps.ch/en/news/press-cuttings.html et http://www.skiarena.ch/infos/projekt-skiarena.html Cossy, Catherine. 2011. “Les 3000 lits qui ont réveillé Andermatt,” Le Temps, January 29. Haltiner, Nadine. 2009. “Andermatt s’offre un gigantesque lifting à 1.5 milliard. Mais pour qui?” Tribune de Genève, October 9. Vogel-Misicka, Susan. 2013. “Le projet d’Andermatt entre doute et espoir,” SWI Swissinfo, May 2, http://www.swissinfo.ch/fre/ le-projet-d-andermatt-entre-doute-et-espoir/35680196. Godet, Alain. 2010. Das Wunder von Andermatt: Wie Sawiris das Gebirgsdorf umkrempelt, https://www.nanoo.tv/code/archive. w22?xf_movie_id=s13564. RTS. 2012. “Monopoly alpin à Andermatt,” Le doc du lundi, October 15. OTHERS: Office fédéral de météorologie et de climatologie MétéoSuisse, Normes climatologiques Andermatt. Forces terrestres, Centre de compétences du service alpin de l’armée, http://www.he.admin.ch/internet/heer/fr/home/themen/kompzengebda. html Gotthard base tunnel: http://www.alptransit.ch/fr/projet.html Gotthard road tunnel: http://www.uvek.admin.ch/themen/03527/03547/ 03548/index.html?lang=fr Projet Porta Alpina: http://www.visiun-porta-alpina.ch/Home.29.0.html Wilhelm, Reto, and Rhätische Bahn. 2014. 125 anni di Ferrovia retica: la storia. Zurich: Orell Füssli. Parc éolien, Gütsch: http://www.bfe.admin.ch/themen/00490/00500/ index.html?lang=fr and: https://api3.geo.admin.ch/rest/services/ech/MapServer/ch.bfe. windenergieanlagen/facility_GUE/extendedHtmlPopup?lang=fr Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse, pages dedicated to Andermatt: http:// www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/f/F691.php.

Images The figures not mentioned in this source list were entirely produced by the author, using basic data from documents mentioned in the bibliography by chapter, under “Cartography.” The drawings produced were made with the valued assistance of Joachim Fritschy, Roberto Sega, Valentin Baertschi, and above all Quentin Andréotti and Axel Jaccard. The photomontages were made with Caal architectes (Rafael Aliende), and xy-ar.ch (Amélie Poncety).

ALPINE TOWNS IN CONTEXT Document 0: Photo an isolated chalet, Verbier and photo urban expansion, Verbier. Axel Jaccard. Document 1: Rural space in 2006. Office fédéral du développement territorial, ARE (2005). Rapport 2005 sur le développement territorial. Document 2: Photomontage of campaign Sauver le sol suisse (2006), Fondation Franz Weber. Document 3: Photomontage of campaign Pour en finir avec les construc­ tions envahissantes des résidences secondaires (2012), Fondation Franz Weber. Document 4: Photomontage of the campaign for the revision of the LAT (2013), Comité interpartis.

VERBIER CASE STUDY Document 0: Photo of Walter Bibikow. Document 0.1: Extract of the parcel plan of Verbier. 2014 cadastral plan SIB, services industriels de Bagnes. Document 1: Zone plan 1960, commune of Bagnes. Document 2: Zone plan 1977, commune of Bagnes. Document 3: Zone assignment plan 1997, commune of Bagnes. Documents 4 and 5: Meili plan (current project state in red, with indications of “nature” facilities), OFT, Meili, A. (1945). Document 6: Photomontage of project SuperVerbier s.a. (1970). Documents 7 and 8: Photos of road congestion, Balleys, D., Vergères, A. (2008). Document 9: Master plan, Verbier sector, commune of Bagnes.

ZERMATT CASE STUDY Document 0: Photo of Zermatt. Credit Anshar-Shutterstock.

AVORIAZ CASE STUDY Document 0: Photo of Patrick Goumoëns. Document 1: Photomontage of the mechanical lifts serving Avoriaz and the ski domain. Jean Vuarnet Project, 1961. Published in the review Le Ski, n° 173, July 1961. Document 2: Equipment plan of the ski area around Avoriaz. Jean Vuarnet Project, 1961. Published in the review Le Ski, n° 173, July 1961. Document 3: Sketch of movements from the master plan of Labro et al. 1966. Published in Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, n° 126, 1966. Document 4: Diagram showing skier movement prioritization. Labro et al. 1966. Published in Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, n° 126, 1966. Documents 5 to 7: Sections showing movement separation principles. Labro et al., 1966. Document 8: General layout and development plan for Avoriaz 1800. Labro et al. 1974. Document kindly provided by the architect. Documents 9 and 10: Development study, cross-sections. Labro et al. 1970. Published in Recherche & Architecture 1970/2. Document 11: Development study, General layout plan. Labro et al. 1970. Published in Recherche & Architecture 1970/2. Documents 12 and 13: The Hauts­Forts building, Project 4 Plans and cross sections. Labro et al. 1967 and photos E. Dessert. Rhône-Alpes region, General Inventory of Cultural Heritage and Municipal Archives, Morzine. Document 14: Hotel des Dromonts, photo E. Dessert. Rhône-Alpes region, General Inventory of Cultural Heritage and Municipal Archives, Morzine. Document 15: Cross-section hotel des Dromonts. Labro et al. 1966. Published in Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, n°  126, 1966, (with additional captions added by the author). Document 16: Le Mélèze(2), project 7 transverse cross-sections. Labro et al. 1967. Rhône-Alpes region, General Inventory of Cultural Heritage and Municipal Archives of Morzine.

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Document 17: Le Mélèze(1), project 6 transverse cross-sections. Labro et al. 1966. Rhône-Alpes region, General Inventory of Cultural Heritage and Municipal Archives, Morzine. Document 18: Implementation principles schematic. Labro et al. 1966. Published in Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, n° 126, 1966. Document 19: Cross-section of Le Mélèze building. Labro et al. 1966. Published in Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, n° 126, 1966. Documents 20 and 21: Photos of Le Mélèze building. T. Mopty. et J.-F. Lyon-Caen, Rhône-Alpes region, General Inventory of Cultural Heritage and Municipal Archives, Morzine. Document 22: Chalet Mont-Oya, roof photo, J.-F. Lyon-Caen. RhôneAlpes region, General Inventory of Cultural Heritage and Municipal Archives, Morzine. Documents 23: Photo, roof of the Thuya building. E. Dessert. RhôneAlpes region, General Inventory of Cultural Heritage and Municipal Archives, Morzine. Document 24: Photo roofs of La Falaise district. E. Dessert. Rhône-Alpes region, General Inventory of Cultural Heritage and Municipal Archives, Morzine. Document 25: Schematics showing the evolution of modes of building commercialization from 1965 to 1994 (partially modified be the author). T. Mopty, theoretical statement, 2015, École Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne. Document 26: Local urban plan P.L.U, Commune of Morzine-Avoriaz, 2014. Document 27: Perspective, Avoriaz extension project. Labro et al. 2003– 2004. Published in Jacques Labro, architecte urbaniste de l’imaginaire au réel, 2012. Document 28: Partial orthophotos (plateau zone) indicating the seasonal landscape variations. Commune of Morzine-Avoriaz 2014. Document 29: Schematics outlining the initial, current, and future management models (partially modified be the author). T. Mopty, theoretical statement 2015, École Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne.

WHISTLER-BLACKCOMB CASE STUDY Documents 0: WSSF Big Air Cometition, © www.alamy.com. Document 1: Project plan, Ecosign. Document 2: Outline principle; main pedestrian arteries, Ecosign. Document 3: Outline principle; pedestrian artery and snow boundary, Ecosign. Document 4: Perspective; India project founded on the same urban principle, Mountainworks.

ANDERMATT CASE STUDY Document 0: Beneath the Andermatt road infrastructure. Photograph by B. Brechbühl and F. Pedrazzetti. Document 1: Andermatt on the national axis of military defense, Armasuisse (2004). Document 2: Andermatt parade ground, military post-card 1905, Me­ diathek, Confédération suisse, n° 2103. Document 3: Military patrol skiing at Andermatt, military post-card 1944, Mediathek, Confédération suisse, n° 1508. Documents 4 and 5: Bunkers around Andermatt. Photographes Fabrizio, L. Documents 6 and 7: Andermatt orthophoto from 2006, Swisstopo, and photomontage of Andermatt in 2030, ASA AG. Document 8: Zone assignment plan 2009, commune of Andermatt. Document 9: 2007 master plan, serving as a basis for the first localized neighborhood plan, Denniston and ASA AG. Document 10: Plan indicating the extent of the podium, 2007, Denniston and ASA AG. Document 11: Longitudinal section, 2007, Denniston and ASA AG. Document 12: Plan schematic of the podium, 2007, Denniston and ASA AG. Documents 13 to 15: Plan Upper Podium, Lower Podium, and Upper Level, 2007, Denniston and ASA AG. Documents 16 and 17: Zooms showing the HQ 100 flood risks in the podium zone, before and after protection added by the Andermatt complex project, Basler & Hofmann et ASA AG.z Documents 18 to 21: Zoom of the podium central zone, ASA AG and zoom of Andermatt’s existing historic village, Swisstopo. Village square in 1905, military post-card 1905, Mediathek, Confédération suisse, n° 2083 and view of the podium’s village square in 2030, Miroslav Šik and ASA AG. Documents 22 to 30: Views of the different densities, Diversity program. 1. Station, Germann & Achermann, 2. North zone, dl-a, 3. Podium central zone, Miller & Maranta, 4. North zone, Ruppeiner Deiss, 5. Sports Centre, 6. Podium central zone, Miller & Maranta, 7. Podium central zone, Miroslav Šik, 8. Hotel Zone, 9. Residential Zone. ASA AG.

236

Thanks The publication of this book is made possible by the generous support of the École Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne. I would like to warmly thank the people whose heartfelt work has enabled the publication of this book: – The entire Birkhäuser team, particularly Alexander Felix and Regina Herr (project management), Heike Strempel (production), Sven Schrape (page layout, English and German versions), Richard Palmer (translation French to English), Beate Susanne Hanen (translation French to German), Keonaona Peterson (copy editing, English version), Ellen Mey (proofreading, German version), François Mortier (proofreading, French version), Christen Jamar (proofreading, English version), Hilke Bemm (copy editing, German version), Aurélie Duthoo (copy editing, French version). – Axel Jaccard, directeur CCHE Design (graphic design) – Typeface used: “Suisse” by Swiss Typefaces This work is based on the thesis prepared by Fiona Pià at the École Polytechnique of Lausanne (thesis no. 7167) within the framework of the doctoral programme Complexdesign. I would also like to remember all the people who contributed to my research: – First and foremost, Professor Inès Lamunière, PhD supervisor (EPFL, LAMU) – The PhD jury, Prof. Paola Viganò (EPFL, LAB-U), Prof. Vincent Kaufmann (EPFL, LASUR), Prof. Olivier Crevoisier (UNINE), Dr. Thomas Scheurer (ICAS, ISCAR) – Thesis proofreader, Jordi Pià – Assistant for drawing production, Quentin Andréotti – With help from Valentin Baertschi, Joachim Fritschy, Olivier Di Giambattista, and Roberto Sega – Assistant for production of photomontages, Rafael Aliende (CAAL Architects) and Amélie Poncety (xy-ar.ch) – Support for research: FDDM (Fondation pour le développement durable des régions de montagne), Eric Nanchen; Altitude 1400, Lucien Barras; ISCAR (International Scientific Committee on Research in the Alps), Thomas Scheurer and Marion Regli; Orascom, Samih Sawiris; Structurame, Damien Dreier; Axel Jaccard, Industrial Designer. – The teachers from the complexdesign doctoral program, Prof. Bruno Marchand, Prof. Jacques Dubey, and Prof. Harry Gugger and my course colleagues Nathalie Adank, Marta Brandao, and Nelson Vera. – The other teachers, Prof. Luca Ortelli, Prof. Franz Graf, and Prof. Dominique Perrault. – All my colleagues at EPFL, firstly Deborah Piccolo but also Marine Durand, Roberto Sega, Fernando Simas, Raphaël Dessimoz, Xavier Apotheker, Virginie Lemarié, Estelle Lépine, Sonia Curnier, Shin Koseki, Yvan Delemontey, Loïc Fumeaux, Dario Negueruela, Patricia Guaita, and Isabel Concheiro. – The EPFL students Timoté Mopty, François Bianco, Angélique Morand, and Marion Mory. – The EPFL modeling workshop, Antoine Gagliardi, Laurent Emmenegger, and Mitch Heynick. – The IT3 group, Nicolas Chevalley and Jérôme Zufferey. – The EPFL Print Center, Steeve Chevalley, Enver Kalimashi, Carinne Christinaz, and Vincent Plantier. – Not forgetting, from EPFL: Andreas Mortensen, Chantal Strickler, Isaline Wahli, Stéphane Decoutère, Sandra Bottà, Melody Meyer, Lydia Roduit, and Sandrine Perroud – The entire Polychinelle team – The president of the commune of Bagnes, Eloi Rossier, and his colleagues Bertrand Deslarzes, Thierry Maret, Eric Fumeaux, Jean Baillod, Jean-Claude Lambiel, Caroline Perraudin , Serge Amos, Valérie Sauge, Marie Lyse Seuret, Magali Moreillon. Damien Balleys and Alex Vergeres, Jean-Yves May, James Medico, Frédéric Dorsaz and Olivier Schalbetter, Reto Sommer, Niki Beyer and Jérôme Dubois, François-Joseph Baillifard, Vincent Epiney, and Damien Hoffmann. – Luca Lerjen and Bernhard Arnold. – Simon Cloutier and Jacques Labro, and Yves Kinossian. – The president of the commune of Andermatt, Roger Nager, and his colleagues Danja Brosi, Samih Sawiris, Ihab Morgan and Doris Anderegg, Kurt Aellen, Beat Hodel, Oscar Merlo, M. Max Germann and M. Martino Epp, Benedikt Loderer, Philippe Mouchet, Thomas Werlen, Christine Rohr, Karin Suini, Philippe Müller and Manuel Bigler, Peter Moerkerk and Markus Oehrli, Martin Zehnder, Bianca Amrein, Leo Fabrizio. – Laurent Vanat, Paul Mathews.

238

– Bernard Attinger, Marcel Maurer, Benoît Greindl, Joël Tettamanti, Patrick de Goumouens, Franca Pedrazzetti und Beat Brechbühl, Joël Tettamanti, Patrick de Goumouens, Franca Pedrazzetti and Beat Brechbühl, Corinne Feuz, Daniel Frank, Alfredo Primavesi, Philippe Bourdeau, Rosa De Marco and Cristina Mattiucci, Lucile Solaris, Fabien Grenon, Philip Jodidio, Didier Bender, Simon Matthey-Doret, Celia Luterbacher, Laétitia Bongard, Hans-Georg Bächtold of the SIA, the FSU, the Tracé review, the Forum review, the world tourism organization UNWTO and the government of Andorra, eco.villages at the Diablerets, ForumAlpinum, The Carnotzets Scientifiques, canal 9, the Club 44, the Biennale Européenne de la montagne, and swissinfo.ch. Grateful thanks to my friends, particularly to Ana-Inès and Damien, also to Ambre and Luc, Nathalie, Jehanne, Alan, Yves and Claudia, Deborah and Fabrice, Hahn, Madeleine, Christophe and Élise, Michael and Anneline, Amélie and Loïc, Jean and Lucie, Victoria and Gordo, Christian and Antoinette, Guiseppe and Laurence, Marc and Sandrine, Flo, and Mark, Ruth and Jean-Claude. A special tender thank you to my mother; my sister, Jelena, and her husband, Triloki; my brothers Jordi and Albert, without forgetting my father and my brother Eric; as well as Jordi Servet and Aquiles. A final thank you, with all my love, to Axel and to our dear Wim.

Author Fiona Pia, architect and doctor of science EPFL Associate architect of Fiona Pia Architectes, Lausanne Translation from French into English: Richard Palmer Copy editing: Julia Dawson Layout and cover design: Axel Jaccard, CCHE Typesetting: Sven Schrape Project management: Alexander Felix, Regina Herr Production: Heike Strempel Cover image: © Caal Architectes and Fiona Pia Font: Suisse, © Swiss Typefaces Paper: Amber Graphic, 120 g/m2 Printing: DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg GmbH, Altenburg Library of Congress Control Number: 2018946526 Bibliographic information published by the German National Library The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained. ISBN 978-3-0356-1719-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-0356-1733-7 German Print-ISBN 978-3-0356-1486-2 French Print-ISBN 978-3-0356-1487-9 © 2019 Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel P.O. Box 44, 4009 Basel, Switzerland Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

987654321

www.birkhauser.com

239

COMPARATIVE MA PS

VERBIER

ZERMATT

AVORIAZ

WHISTLER BLACKCOMB

ANDERMATT SWISS A LPS

Building zones andlanduse

pp.27-30

p.71

pp.81-84

p.125

pp.148-152

1935

5ha

18ha

0.1ha

Oha

.-

14ha existing village

·'j

·'

�· ;·.

0

500m

cable-car planned

freeway planned

{1963)

{1965)

_,

' - ,., ! /

,,

·;

·;j Building zones andlanduse

2014

2030 in the case of Andermat Swiss Alps

pp. 30-35

p.71

pp.84-87

pp.125-131

235ha

185ha

41ha

59ha

pp.152-155

47ha existing village

• • • •

0

_,

310ha

500m

including

30ha

• • •

new project

•

surrounding i �>_ v.-··

urban sprawl

••

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• •

•

77ha

•

in total

' ' ' ' ' •'

.·

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"':.-. '

I

Natural context

pp.54-59

42ha avalanche danger

V

,

,.

G

blue zone

pp.74-75

pp.104,116-119

pp.172-177

7ha

5ha

25ha

avalanche danger

avalanche danger

were in flood zones

red zone

red zone

before the podium infrastructure that acts as a protective barrier

0.5ha

31ha

·.

..

flood danger

avalanche danger

red zone

blue zone

4ha

5ha

flood danger

flood danger

blue zone

red zone

� �� �

47ha flood danger

d

yellow zone

ger

blue zone

21ha

(I

flood danger yellow zone

Roadnetwo rk (automobiles)

48km for

936,000 m2

of built area

Urbanlzlng the Alps Fiona Pia, © 2019 Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel

pp.104,108-111

pp.76-77

pp.46-53 -'

pp.132-133,136-137

pp.164-172

35km

0.6km

6.9km

0.9km

for

for

for

for

1,135,360 m2

of built area

).•-

290,000 m2

813,468 m2

260,000 m2

of built area

of built area

of built area

�·

{61 km including

(2.7km of existing roads)

surrounding urban sprawl)

\

"\

COMPARATIVE MA PS

VERBIER

ZERMATT

Built density

pp. 40-46

pp. 71-73

PP-

0.40

0.61

0.7 1

2030

2014

in the case of

Andermat Swiss Alps

AVORIAZ

102-103,106-107

WHISTLER BLACKCOMB

ANDERMATT SWISS A LPS

pp. 132-135

pp. 178-183

1.37

0.87

1.09 Blackcomb: 2.39

Whistler:

/ ,

'

Verbier:

963,000 m2 of built

area on building zone of

0.20

235 ha.

Zermatt

1.135,360 m2 of built

area on building zone of 185 ha.

1.22

density of the

on the podium

surrounding

infrastructure

urban sprawl

Avoriaz:

290,000 m2 of built

area on building zone of

41 ha.

Whistler Blackcomb:

813,460 m2 of built

area on building zone of

59 ha.

Andermatt Swiss Alps:

260,000 m2 (365,000 m2 including the podium

infrastructure) of built area on building zone of

o

(l

235 ha.

soom

Focus on the built density 2030

2014

in the case of

Andermat Swiss Alps

oo/o

40°/o

60°/o

Percentage of the total built area represented by individual chalets

00

'·'

I

0

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pp. 55, 64-65

PP-

..

,.,

4.9°/o of public amenities 0

12.9°/o

16.5°/o

of public amenities

of public amenities

-···

500m

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4.8°/o of hotels

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1

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90.3°/o'.'• of residences

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pp. 127,132,138-139

21°/o

pp. 178-180,184-185 .

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40°/o

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