Utility and necessity in architecture: design, construction and transformation of alpine buildings

Alpine buildings are an integral part of the landscape system where natural and built elements must be as one to guarantee the safety and protection of both place and people. The perfect and necessary symbiosis derives from a close relationship between the built elements and the natural design of the orographic and physical environment, making all formal and/or stylistic themes ephemeral and evanescent. Alpine architecture thus incorporates values ascribable to the characteristics of the place and the search for adaptation to the site has always been the principal generator of any construction. The alpine architectural system (seasonal alpine farmsteads and huts, hermitages on mountain passes) is made up of structures useful and necessary for the economy, for shelter, for defence and to stabilize the land. In this context, we felt it would be interesting to study the system of alpine structures in the Valle di Fiemme, an area where from economic necessity subsistence agriculture has always existed side-by-side with forestry and livestock farming, leading to the development and construction of infrastructure even on slopes unfavourable for their steepness and exposure to the sun. These structures are today partly abandoned and one often wonders if and how they should be restored, if they should remain a shelter for the alpine wanderer or if they should be transformed (functionally and thus economically), adopting architectural models knowingly indifferent to the physical landscape.