One hundred days before the start of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA), in collaboration with Salone del Mobile.Milano unveiled designs for a digitally fabricated bivouac that will be built in Milan in the coming weeks, then disassembled and airlifted to a permanent high‑Alpine site to serve as a long‑term refuge for mountaineers.
CRA and Salone del Mobile.Milano said the design grew from high‑resolution 3D scans of Alpine rock formations, which informed a shell‑like form panelised from cross‑laminated timber (CLT), aerogel insulation, and metal cladding. CLT is a layered engineered wood prized for strength and lightness; panelisation describes how panels are cut and joined for transport and weatherproofing. The studio added that the geometry is intended to minimise visual impact while delivering full functionality for remote, high‑altitude use.
Expanding on the purpose of the Milan pavilion, the studio explains that it intends it as more than a showpiece: it serves as a testbed. Designers will evaluate whether a transportable, low-impact shelter can deliver resilience, renewable-energy independence, and practical emergency response in alpine regions before committing the structure to its mountain site.
The shell is engineered for off‑grid operation, featuring a 5 kW peak photovoltaic array with battery storage and an air‑condensation unit. This setup extracts several litres of potable water per day from humid air, delivering both power and drinking water in locations without mains services. The shelter also provides basic network connectivity for routine and emergency communications.
In keeping with its unobtrusive design, CRA noted that rather than adopting the bright colours typical of emergency shelters, the bivouac is visually discreet. A bright red safety light will activate only in conditions of limited visibility, reducing its visual impact while still ensuring safety in critical moments.
CRA will disassemble the pavilion after its Milan run and helicopter it to its permanent location in the mountains. The studio described the two‑stage lifecycle — urban exhibition followed by permanent installation — as an exercise in circular design that tests technical performance and public acceptance in the city before deployment in a remote environment; exact airlift dates have not been confirmed.
“Unfortunately, today bivouacs often look like airships that have landed on our beautiful alpine landscapes. Here we took the opposite approach: a structure that blends as much as possible with the surroundings,” said Carlo Ratti, professor at MIT and the Politecnico di Milano, co‑founder of CRA and director of the Biennale Architettura 2025. “Great 20th‑century Italian architect Gio Ponti once said that architecture is ‘like a crystal’. We took that literally in this design, using digital fabrication to design a bivouac as if it were part of the natural rock formations that shape the Alps.”
A glazed wall frames the alpine panorama and creates a meditative interior intended for rest, reflection, short‑term cultural use, and shelter. The project required close coordination between the studio and fabricators on panelisation, grain orientation, and material layering to balance insulation, weatherproofing, and transportability — workshop decisions, CRA said, that were critical to achieving seamless edges and reliable performance in extreme conditions.
In alpine environments, facing mounting pressure from climate change and rising tourism, CRA presents the bivouac as a model for responsive shelter design: lightweight, renewable‑powered, and transferable from an urban showcase to remote service without losing operational purpose. The Milan test will show whether digitally fabricated, low‑impact shelters can be scaled as practical tools for alpine safety and conservation as tourism and climate stress intensify.
