- Project description
In recent decades, demographic change has mainly been a problem for old town centers. Shopping and living facilities shifted increasingly to the local area borders; Old cities are struggling with problems such as vacancy and foreclosure. Many buildings not only do not meet modern energy standards, but also do not reflect the modern rooms’ allocation demanded. An innovative and interactive research project is designed to reactivate the potential of the historical centers of the municipalities of Münster and Otzberg as well as the city of Bensheim. Together with citizens, real estate owners and politicians, sustainable and resource-conserving ideas are developed in order to preserve and structurally enhance old cities and municipalities.
Within the last two years the project partners - the city of Bensheim, the municipality of Münster and the municipality of Otzberg - were developing future scenarios with the Technical University of Darmstadt and the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research (Fraunhofer IGD). The ideas were presented in 3D models within citizens' workshops.
The competence center Spatial Information Management developed within the project an interactive 3D Application. Thus, different stakeholders are able to exchange and discuss ideas for the future land use. In addition, Fraunhofer IGD contributed to the preparation, harmonization, and integration of the various geospatial data and created an interactive visualization environment.
A multi-touch table provides a platform for discussing the alternatives by the expert team, visualizing the development potentials.
The project duration referred to the period from 03/2017 to 02/2019.
Now that the BMBF-funded project has been completed, a functional final version of a WebGIS application is available for planning workshops and participation procedures, so that gaps in construction, vacancies and modernisation bottlenecks in village centres will soon be a thing of the past. Even a profitability and building law audit is included. In this way, ideas can be tested live for their feasibility. The tool can also be used in location marketing and business development.