After successful completion of the course, students are able to better understand life in rural areas. They are familiar with the spatial, political and social conditions and contexts and know about the needs of the resident population as well as those of ex-pats or so-called aliens. Students have developed an understanding of the role architects can play in this interplay and what processes are necessary for spatial change. They have developed their own design and spatial proposals for the residents and have learned to present their concepts and arguments in such a way that they can also be understood by citizens without any architectural background.
What will life in the countryside look like in the future? Not only since Corona there has been discussion about how to make rural areas fit for the future in order to remain or become an attractive place to live. Social needs have (partly) changed compared to the last decades. Biographies are rarely linear, people pursue several directions, their lives are less predictable than before. As a result, desires and requirements for (temporary) places to stay and live are also changing. This contrasts with a generation whose biographies have a calmer course and whose goal was to create property. These owner-occupied homes are now often too large or difficult to divide. A possible division of these properties or conversion of partial vacancies is difficult to discuss and even less to decide on, since alternative offers as well as concrete examples are lacking to make such a step conceivable and feasible.
In addition, there are issues such as migration from the countryside for educational purposes or the search for a job. At the same time, local companies are finding it increasingly difficult to find apprentices or potential successors. The social infrastructure in villages differs from what is offered in cities and is often based on voluntary work in the form of associations. The willingness to get involved is no longer a matter of course. So there is often a wide gap between the real needs of villagers and local conditions.
How should this continue? Who are the future inhabitants of rural areas? Are they all those people who still want to live according to "traditional values"? Or are they families who want to escape the noise and dust of the big city and offer their children a "better" upbringing? Or is it the dropouts who (at the latest now in the Corona crisis) have discovered the possibility of the home office and can thus adapt their (working) life to their leisure or sports needs? Or is it just more those people with the necessary small change who can afford another residence wherever it is nice and the money is at best profitably invested? Or will it simply be all those people living in rural areas in the future who didn't make it away and are still here, for whatever reason... These possible groups of residents couldn't be more different. How do their housing needs differ? What are their needs beyond that? How do they move? Where and how do they work? Where do they shop? What is their leisure time like? Do they spend it at home or do they commute? What is their image of the future?
The course is held in cooperation with the Baukulturregion Alpenvorland!
www.baukulturregion.de
Location of research and desgin: Dietramszell (Bavaria) and surroundings
Methodically we approach the topic "Life in the village 2.0" in the analysis as well as in the design phase by means of protagonists. In this way, the villagers get a face, an everyday life that has to be mastered with joys and sorrows.
1st phase
In the first analysis phase, the students deal with the topic in general as well as with the regional and local conditions - both spatially and socially; the aim is to get into the current discourse, but also to classify the individual topics and their significance in the area of responsibility of the community of Dietramszell and its surrounding region. By analyzing the region on the basis of the needs of individual, specific groups of residents, the necessary framework conditions are identified. Thereby an understanding for the everyday life of village inhabitants as well as for a functioning village life is to be developed.
2nd phase
In a second step, these analyses will be verified and possible future ways of living and the corresponding necessities will be identified. For this purpose, the students conduct interviews with local protagonists and immerse themselves in their living realities. The focus remains on the question of what a "village of the future" must be able to do: What would a young student need to return to his hometown later? What would a pensioner need to be able to pass on her house to the next generation? What does a young family need so that the rural area is also attractive as a place to work and one does not have to decide between family and career?
In the first phase of analysis as well as in the second phase, aspects such as housing forms and needs, mobility, privacy - community, gainful employment - unpaid work - association work, ownership - sharing economy, education, culture, community uses... play an essential role. The results of the two analysis phases will be graphically processed, with special emphasis on the spatial component of the statements made. The comparative processing of the analyses should lead to the identification of possible synergies, similarities and shortcomings.
3rd phase
This knowledge in turn serves as a basis to work on solution proposals in a third step. The students work on spatial proposals in a workshop on site. These give answers to the needs of the individual villagers (groups). They should be insights and outlooks how sustainable life in the village could look like.
Schedule
1st phase
11.3. issue or definition of the protagonists for the regional and local research
25.3. independent work: regional analysis
15.4. independent work: regional analysis
22.4. presentation of regional analysis
2nd phase
29.4. individual meetings for local analysis / villagers' analysis
6.5. individual meetings for local analysis / villagers' analysis
20.5. individual meetings for local analysis / villagers' analysis
27.5. individual meetings for local analysis / villagers' analysis
31.5. presentation of local analysis (with guest critics)
1.6. workshop / discussion: synergies, similarities and shortcomings of the local analyses
3rd phase
9-16.7. whole. Design workshop (if possible: on site, otherwise via zoom)
Week 29 Delivery
Due to the restrictions of the Corona pandemic, the LVA will be conducted via TUWEL course, but adaptation to hybrid teaching format will be sought if the possibility arises due to relaxations.
Weekly corrections, interim presentations, workshop, final submission.