Studioarbeid våren 2022. Prosjektet fokuserer på hvordan man skal tenke etter en naturkatastrofe, i dette tilfellet Ahr-dalen i Tyskland som ble rammet av en ekstrem flom.
B A C K R O U N D
In the span of three days in July 2021, Germany experienced the worst flood in six decades. 134 people died in the Ahr Valley alone, and hundreds more were injured. Hundreds of houses in the floodplain have been left unliveable. It will likely take five to ten years to restore all the infrastructure due to the sheer amount of damage.
Researchers have linked the flood in the Ahr Valley to climate change, and states the risk of flooding in the area is increasing.
N A T U R A L D I S A S T E R S I N L A N D S C A P E A R C H I T E C T U R E
The moment after a natural disaster is a window of time that can be used to adapt-to-climate (change) and to capitalise on opportunities that such change could bring to the affected areas and communities.
H o w s h o u l D w e M O V E f o r w a r D I N A H R W E I L E R ?
My design approach is to minimize the flood before it hits the city of 28.000 people, through water retention areas.
I have focused on one potential water retention area in Ahrweiler, but for this to really work it has to be implemented on multiple areas along the river. I have mapped out some of the potential areas in yellow here on the map, with my area to the far right.
V E G E T A T I O N
To avoid the vegetation from doing more damage than good, I have focused on using vegetation that is shown to be resilient to flooding, like the salix family. The ground is covered in a flood tolerant meadow with species that can live in both dry and wet conditions.
R E N D E R I N G S A N D I L L U S T R A T I O N S
The photo above shows one of the renderings i made in this project. The landscape is modelled in Revit, and adapted using Photoshop.