Refuge remix – Creative workshop in a refuge

Refuges have different geographical, technical, cultural and functional characteristics to conventional tourist accommodation. Under the influence of climatic, cultural and technological change, their status, functions and audience are changing. They are becoming veritable recreational laboratories, where issues of heritage and quality of welcome are now combined with issues of initiation, experience, transmission and observation of the relationship with the mountains.

The Refuge Remix approach makes it possible to rethink the space-time of the refuge and its surroundings, reinterpreting social, temporal and spatial rhythms with a view to conviviality and sustainability. It was tested in June 2019 as part of the Refuges Sentinelles research program, in a mid-mountain context, at the Alpe de Villar d’Arène refuge (Écrins).

Refuge Remix is based on a methodology deployed over three days to bring together multidisciplinary teams to design and implement inspiring ideas. These ideas are based on creative challenges drawn up in advance of the event by the research team and stakeholders (warden, alpine club, commune, etc.). They are implemented at the refuge in the form of usage scenarios and functional prototypes, using lightweight materials and tools that have minimal environmental impact and are easy to transport.

In 2023, a new edition of Refuge Remix will be organized as part of the HutObsTour project – refuges as observatories of tourism transition . It will take place at the Couvercle refuge (2683 m) in the Mer de Glace basin (Mont-Blanc), one of the project’s three study sites. Accessible in four hours’ walk from the Montenvers station, it is emblematic of the history of mountaineering. Its use by climbers of all levels has been severely affected by glacial retreat, making access and climbing more difficult and complex both upstream and downstream.

Using the case of the Couvercle refuge as a starting point, the aim of Remix is to explore creative scenarios likely to offer inspiration and appropriate design solutions to the environmental and cultural changes facing the owners, managers and janitors of high-mountain refuges and huts in the Alps: new services, facilities and audiences, new activities, temporalities and spatialities…

The prototypes created will be exhibited at the refuge during the summer of 2023, then taken down to the valley to be presented to the public in collaboration with local stakeholders: Maison de la montagne, Musée alpin, Club alpin, etc. Media relations will be carried out before, during and after the event.

The project will be presented at an international symposium on refuges (December 2023), and articles will be written for scientific and popular magazines.

Members of the Refuge Remix organization team :

Marc Langenbach (Pacte), Philippe Bourdeau (Pacte), Victor Andrade (Pacte), Sophie De Rosemont (Pacte), Mélanie Clivaz, (Cirm), Jean Miczka (Cirm), Christophe Clivaz (Cirm), Laine Chanteloup (Cirm)