«(Un)Beständigkeit» Bachelor thesis + project

Switzerland's geography leaves it regularly exposed to natural hazards. Mass movements — rockfalls, rock and mountain collapses, landslides, and debris flows — pose a particular threat to mountain villages and the people who live in them. Geological research suggests these events will grow more frequent as the climate changes, yet reliable long-term studies are still missing. That gap is the starting point of this project: what can already be read in the data we have, and is it just a string of extreme events, or a systemic pattern? «(Un)Beständigkeit» is an interactive installation that brings together imagery and datasets on mass movements alongside long-running climate records from 2010–2025, turning them into geographically and chronologically ordered data points that can be explored and compared. Its centrepiece is a three-part wall installation: A triptych echoing the threes that run through the data itself (three processes, three climate variables, three categories of damage). Visitors navigate the work through an iPad, from a set of climate stations that I preselected across the alpine regions. Around each station, a radius of 40–50 km defines the area in which the corresponding mass movement data is shown, so that climate records and events are read together rather than in isolation. The installation can be switched between two forms of data visualization: A terrain view, which situates the data in the landscape, and a detail view that lets visitors examine individual stations and events more closely.

🏔️ A big thank you to Frau Dr. Käthi Liechti from WSL for providing me the Swiss flood and landslide damage database. The data base  is compiled from reports, mainly media coverage, supplemented by authorities and insurers, and its damage figures are largely estimates. 🏔️
The climate data was taken from the open source material «homogenized climate data» from MeteoSchweiz. Topographic map, such as geo data for the terrains was provided by SwissTopo.

Title screen of the installation: A swipe that reveals the landscape change in Brienz (GR) from the years 2020 to 2025. 

The iPad works as a controller. Information in form of text is mainly displayed on the iPad.

A selected station and its defined area.

Geo referenced terrains that show the location of the climate station and its defined area around it. The left panel works as the climate panel (Driver), in the middle we have the mass movements (Event) and on the right the casualties (Consequences).

A visitor interacts with the detail view of the installation.

The work is built in p5.js, which renders the georeferenced maps, the data points, and the terrain and detail views onto a single wide canvas. The base map and elevation data come from swisstopo, georeferenced so that climate stations and mass movement events sit accurately in space. The canvas is then projected onto the three angled panels using Millumin for the projection mapping, while a Node.js and Socket.io server links the iPad to the installation so that selections register in real time.

Selected: precipitation anomaly to climate norm 1991–2020, debris flows and landslides, such as evacuated, injured and dead people. 

Detail view

By selecting an extreme event such as Blatten, visitors can explore informations and pictures about it.

Extreme event Schwanden (GL)

Me in front of the panels

Click on a climate station

Data Visualization control panel

«flat view» of the station selection

«flat view» of the detail view

«flat view» of the detail view, different station

«flat view» of the terrains

Video, showing the installation and the iPad

Project-Documentation and Thesis insight coming soon 
Bachelor-DataBook / Projekt-und Prozessdokumentation / Bachelor-Arbeit
(Un)Beständigkeit
Massenbewegungen in der alpinen Schweiz

Autor:in: Danielle Urech, DDA23

DataBook Mentorin: Dr. Phil. Ulrike Felsing
Projekt Fachmentor: Michael Flückiger

BA Data Design + Art, Hochschule Luzern – Design Film Kunst
© HSLU, 2026
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