Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners Ltd.

• Ecosign

Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners Ltd. is a mountain and ski resort planning company based in Whistler. Ecosign was founded by Paul E. Mathews in July of 1975 in Whistler, with the term Ecosign being a contraction of the words “ecological design.” The company has grown through the decades to become a pre-eminent mountain resort planning company worldwide. Ecosign has worked on over 400 different mountain resort projects in 42 countries of the world and has gained prominence, not only in the design of successful new resorts in Canada, USA, and China, but also for the redesign and renovation of some of Europe’s oldest and most famous resorts such as Davos, Laax, Grindelwald, Verbier, Zermatt, Courchevel, St. Anton, Serfaus, and Soelden. The company's staff of about twenty people include landscape architects, architects, engineers, soil scientists, and MBAs. Projects begin with topography, hydrology, soil, and solar-exposure mapping. They both source and commission studies, and use tools such as GIS and LIDAR mapping. In the following step, they study the topography to identify “terrain pods” where slopes can be laid out. Designers sketch out the possible ski slopes, informed by the mapping. Glacial till is most often their base. Solar exposure can make or kill a slope, as the sun at full exposure can at best create slush and at worst destroy ski-slope snow. From there, a rough design for the ski slopes can be drawn, and lifts specified based on the expected number of skiers per hour. Following these rounds of analysis and initial design, the Ecosign team heads to the site for an on-slope evaluation, armed with inclinometers that measure the angles of the slopes and GPS units to mark up their maps and check their designs in person and by hand. The blend of digital and analog tools runs throughout their design process. Ecosign produces master plans and analyses that provide a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of ski resort development—the volume of skiers on a particular piste, the number of mountain restaurant seats available, and the number of vehicles needing places to park.

Whistler

Mountain design
Ski resort design

RAD, July 2008 version. Canadian Council of Archives.

Catalogued March 2022.

1) http://www.ecosign.com/about
2) Archival material
3) http://www.ecosign.com/home
4) https://landscapearchitecturemagazine.org/2020/01/30/head-for-the-hill/