AHI Architectural Heritage Intervention

“Contributing to enhancing our heritage, as the way forward for 21 st Century architecture is our raison d’être; to emphasize a diverse, rich vision that necessarily complements the intervention is our mission, and achieving it with reflexive and purposeful efforts is the challenge”.

This project, founded in, and directed since, 2011 by Ramon Calonge, Oriol Cusidó, Marc Manzano and Jordi Portal, architects and members of the Group of Architects for the Defence and Intervention in Architectural Heritage (AADIPA), has, through the years become a platform that includes four actions that are both independent and transversal.
 
The European Award, a biennial event that brings together and showcases the multiple approaches of intervention in Europe.

The International Biennial, a framework that serves to compare and gain closer insight of quality interventions in architectural heritage in non-European countries.

The digital Archive, a live and open window that provides a panoramic view of interventions in the history of our surroundings.

The Forum, a meeting place where you can participate in on-going debates about the main preoccupations and lines of thought about interventions in architectural heritage in Europe.

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Flood protection as urban design

Flood protection as urban design

Grimma, a city of c. 18,000, is situated on a terrace in the Mulde River valley. During floods in 2002, the city was one of the worst affected in Saxony. The river reached the highest water level ever recorded there, putting the historic center under as much as 3.5 m of floodwaters, destroying or damaging almost 700 houses. Consequently, the state commissioned technical flood control plans. However, what distinguishes Grimma from many other towns is its unusually well preserved setting in the landscape, with a largely intact medieval city wall still bordering the riverbank. Historic urban and landscape ensembles of great beauty make the city attractive to both inhabitants and visitors. The engineers' plans therefore met heavy resistance. Our team of architects and landscape planners was called in to design the above-ground elements of the flood barrier system. The goal was to make these rarely used but in places prominent structures compatible with conservation and townscape concerns and use them for a general revitalization of the waterfront.

Author

Chair of Architectural Conservation and Design, TU Dresden
Thomas Will
Nils Schinker
Heiko Lieske
Andreas Ammon

Collaborators

Team: Antje Fleischer, Martin Flemming, Andreas Fuchs, Martin Haymann, Katharina Odrich, Tobias Reckert and Tanja Stock
Engineers: ICL Ingenieur Consult, PGS Scholz & Lewis, Ingenieurbüro Klemm & Hensen, G.U.B. Ingenieur, KUBENS Ingenieur, Jäger Ingenieure and CDM Consult
Project management and supervision: LTV (State Dam Authority) Sachsen, Betrieb Elbaue/Mulde/Untere Weiße Elster

Edition

5
Shortlisted

Year

2019

City

Grimma

Country

Germany

Surface area sqm

40.000

Cost €

10.000.000

Client

Public

© Photographer

Till Schuster