IRIS OLIÉ

During the second year at École Nationale Supérieure de Paysage, there is a classroom Mountain. This classroom permits the confrontation to the topography and the great mountain system. With my colleague Nicolas Delporte, we saw the canals as a potential structure of this landscape.

The villages of Pelvoux and Vallouise are part of a valley. Within the next 50 years, the valley should adapt to global warming and find a new way of development for mountain activities. This adaptation can carry a territorial identity linking. Channels are common property, but less and less used, and little by little forget. These channels are a treasure that has allowed human settlement in the valley. Sources of life, they are much more important than we imagine.

Can the water network be a heritage issue to connect the new municipality Vallouise/Pelvoux?

This valley project aims to forge links between the villages of Pelvoux and Vallouise by building on the existing water network. It integrates a system revealing the «already there» and the «forgotten». Developed on the ‘adret’ (sunny side mountain), the mesh of the channels allows a diversity of vegetation, where one succeeds open and closed spaces, favoring so many atmospheres. Sometimes in the shade of the vegetation, sometimes stunned by a sudden opening on the great landscape, the canal tells us a human story. In the middle of this network, remarkable points are arranged to remind us that we are part of a larger territory.