Italian architects and researchers Roberto Dini and Stefano Girodo have built a prefabricated shelter, named Bivouac Luca Pasqualetti, on the edge of a mountain peak in Valpelline, Italy.
Located at an altitude of 3,290 metres in the Morion Ridge, the building was developed in collaboration with LEAPfactory for a group of local alpine guides who wanted to encourage exploration of "forgotten routes".

"The aim of Bivouac Luca Pasqualetti is to rediscover forgotten places by lightly improving their accessibility for mountaineering," explained architects Dini and Girodo, who are researchers at the Polytechnic University of Turin.
"A simple structure such as a bivouac, positioned in a remote place with a difficult access, is specifically conceived to encourage a niche alpinism."
Dini and Girodo describe the shelter as an "extraordinary design challenge", due to its remote location and extreme weather, with temperatures dropping below minus 20 degrees celsius.
The prefabricated hut has a structure divided into four high-strength composite panels, made from wood and steel.
These components were sized to reduce the overall number of helicopter flights needed for the final assembly ? enabling the shelter to be constructed in one working day.

Slotted together, the panels form a small metal-clad hut with a pitched roof, which the architects designed to echo the jagged peaks of the Morion ridge.

The building sits on temporary metal foun...