astoc

master plan

Along its path through the northern Ruhr District, the Neue Emscher River traverses an extremely heterogeneous urban environment. Undoubtedly, the structural alteration of the river system harbors significant potential for future development of the region as a whole. This redesign is not restricted to open areas immediately adjoining the Neue Emscher River, i.e. the so-called core area, but is instead bound up with areas lying far beyond it.
The Emscher conversion project represents a unique planning and technical challenge. Undergoing regeneration is a stretch of river 85 km in length that is located at the center of Europe's region of highest density, a waterway that exists today only to convey wastewater. The masterplan “emscher:zukunft” defines a vision and a guiding idea for the urbanistic and landscape development of the Neue Emschertal (New Emscher Valley), deriving from it a concrete planning and spatial image and simultaneously communicating a transformative strategy. As an adaptable, flexibly implementable and responsive planning platform, the masterplan provides a reliable consensus between all regional protagonists while supplying impulses for new projects.

Awards:
2007 "Best Practice", Netzwerk Raumplanung in Österreich, recognition

Typology: Strategic Masterplanning
Project no.: 0308/0565/

Client and location: Emschergenossenschaft, Essen
Planning period: competition 1st prize 2003, planning 08/2003 – the present
Construction period: -
Size: River course 85 km in length, ca. 4,000 ha
Program: Structural alteration of the Emscher River and its surroundings from its source in Holzwickede all the way to its outlet near Dinslaken
Services performed: competition, Masterplan emscher:zukunft, additional performance packet
Participating offices: RMP Landscape architects, Bonn, Landschaft Planen und Bauen, Berlin, Post und Welters, Dortmund
Participating colleagues: Martin Berchtold, Tim Bruckhoff, Christoph Durban, Philipp Krass, Markus Lang, Ingo Kanehl

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