M2.1b | Futur[AHR]. Future Prospects Ahr Valley

The flood disaster in July 2021 left far-reaching damage in the villages along the river Ahr in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate and changed the landscape of the Ahr Valley in a previously unimagined way within one day. Since then, those responsible on site have been faced – in addition to short-term disaster management – with the challenging task of developing a long-term sustainable concept for restoring the region and making it habitable again as well as attractive for tourists.

In the summer term of 2022, the design project surveyed four distinctive villages along the course of the Ahr in terms of landscape as well as architectural history, so that culturally and historically sustainable perspectives for the future could then be designed on an urban scale. On this basis, the task for the winter semester is to create impulse-giving building designs around the building ensemble of the winegrowers' cooperative in Mayschoß, which was damaged by the flood and represents the economic and social anchor of the village. The aim of the design is the challenging combination of the analyzed identity-forming characteristics of the village with a flood-preventive construction method to a contemporary architecture.

The M2 project started in the summer term 2022 and will be continued in the current winter term.