BMUB: Bicycle or car key? New project on climate-friendly mobility in the residential environment
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How can people be helped to leave their cars behind more often for short journeys? Answers to this question are to be provided by a new project funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment. The project "Living Leads Mobility" aims to create new opportunities and offers for climate-friendly mobility in the residential environment.
In up to five metropolitan regions, it aims to show tenants in particular attractive options for leaving their cars at home more often, switching to alternatives and thus doing something for climate protection and their own health.
Do I take the bike key or the car key? Mobility decisions for short journeys in the neighbourhood usually follow habit. With the new project "Living leads mobility", the project partners want to develop practicable and climate-friendly alternatives. By providing various mobility options directly at the place of residence, the aim is to increase choice and significantly reduce CO2 emissions. The offers include, for example, the installation of secure parking facilities for bicycles, walking frames and pushchairs, the establishment of a car-sharing station in the residential area or the simple posting of a bus timetable on the notice board of the residential complex. In practice, this means close cooperation between housing companies, local authorities and mobility service providers. Decision-makers receive information on suitable measures and advice on implementation issues. In a comprehensive guide, housing companies learn how to implement measures to promote mobility.
realise sustainable mobility. And tenants receive information and tips on climate-friendly mobility behaviour.
The joint project will be funded over the next three years with a total of around 1.1 million euros from the National Climate Initiative (NKI). The project partners are the German Ecological Transport Association (VCD) as project coordinator, the Öko-Institut and the German Tenants' Association (DMB). Companies and local authorities interested in taking part can contact us by email at Rainer.Hauck@vcd.org.
State aid for housing construction drives up prices, but does not bring more housing. This is how an assessment by the DIW (German Institute for Economic Research), Berlin, can be interpreted.
"The raw material wood is precious. It is therefore important to use it responsibly and in a way that conserves resources," warns Peter Aicher, Chairman of Holzbau Deutschland. Even if wood is affected by environmental influences or the bark beetle, it does not represent an inferior raw material, but has almost identical properties to conventional construction timber. "If the so-called 'calamity wood' has the same structural quality in terms of load-bearing capacity as conventional sawn timber, it can be used without restrictions," explains Aicher. In addition, the wood retains its important function as a CO2 sink, regardless of external impairments.
"If the wood is used as a building material, the carbon bound in the wood remains stored there in the long term, thereby significantly reducing the burden on the environment."
The goal must be an economically and ecologically sensible and efficient use of the domestic resource. In the interests of sustainability and climate protection, regional wood resources should therefore be used optimally.
Calamity wood is of high quality and can be used without restrictions
In most cases, bark beetle infestation is irrelevant for the use of the wood as a building material. The bark beetle lays its burrows in the bast, i.e. the area between the bark (bark) and the trunk, but not in the load-bearing wood itself. In addition, the sawn timber is technically dried during further processing. During this process at the latest, any remaining populations of insect pests are reliably killed off, so that beetle-free timber processed into sawn timber is guaranteed to be beetle-free. Every piece of sawn timber - regardless of its origin - must meet the criteria of DIN standard 4074 in order to be used as load-bearing timber in a building. In some cases, the wood turns a slightly bluish colour after a bark beetle infestation. It can then be used in the non-visible area.
Environmental factors and the effects of climate change have further facilitated the mass spread of the bark beetle in the past year. In most cases, rapid felling of the affected trees is the only alternative to stop the further spread of the pest. The logs are immediately removed from the forest and stored. This results in an oversupply of so-called 'beetle wood'. The prompt further processing of the calamity wood into sawn timber is an active contribution to climate protection.
Holzbau Deutschland appeals to the public sector as well as to architects and builders to make greater use of regional calamity wood and to specify this in tenders. The use of domestic calamity wood not only supports regional value creation, but is also a sign of solidarity with regional forest owners.
Great joy in Aachen: One of the central urban development projects is awarded special federal funding.
Mayor Sibylle Keupen: "This is a super message for our city!"
The Büchel old town quarter is one of 24 projects nationwide that are now being supported with a total of 75 million euros.
98 cities and municipalities had applied.
A most welcome piece of news reached the city of Aachen this morning (17 March 2021): Federal Minister Horst Seehofer has announced this year's selection of the "National Projects of Urban Development" and announced that the development of the Büchel old town quarter will receive up to 5.5 million euros in funding. Aachen is thus one of four municipalities in NRW to have been awarded the contract. With the amount of funding, the city is in third place nationwide.
Great news from Berlin: The federal government wants to support the development of the Büchel in Aachen's city centre with up to 5.5 million euros. Photo: City of Aachen / Andreas Herrmann
OBin Keupen: "We feel the spirit of optimism!"
"This is a great message for our city," says Mayor Sibylle Keupen in her first reaction. "We have long felt the spirit of optimism around the Büchel in Aachen. The demolition of the multi-storey car park is imminent, the planning workshop was a great success, many groundbreaking political decisions have been made, and more are on the horizon. Above all, many city makers are on board and want to be involved in a very concrete way. They want to participate, to shape, to plan, to build. The fact that this high level of commitment of all those involved here on site has now also triggered such a response at federal level encourages us to continue on the path of 'making a city at Büchel'."
City Planning Director Burgdorff: "Aachen can play in the Bundesliga!"
The municipal councillor for urban development, construction and mobility, Frauke Burgdorff, adds: "I am extremely pleased that Aachen, if it sticks together, can also play in the Bundesliga! Aachen's politicians have united behind the project and have given their backing to the state and federal governments. Thank you for that! But I would also like to express my sincere thanks to those who have done the substantive work here on site, to the municipal project manager Nils Jansen as well as to Christoph Guth and Antje Eickhoff, who have done an excellent job on the part of the municipal development company SEGA."
Making town at the Büchel
A special piece of the city at eye level is to be created at Büchel. It is being developed together with many committed people and institutions. With this approach, it has also precisely met the requirements of the call for proposals. The Federal Ministry's project overview states: "Knowledge, living, meadow" are the keywords under which a mixed-use, urban quarter is to be created in the heart of Aachen's old town in a cooperative and exemplary development process that is wanted and supported by the urban community.
The basis for the development is the exploratory procedure "Stadt machen am Büchel" (Making a city at Büchel), which the city of Aachen launched in spring 2020. City Planning Director Burgdorff sums up: "A multi-storey car park has been blocking the development of the old town for decades. We are tearing it down and building a new urban quarter. The urban community itself is developing the programme, urban design and investment strategy. This project offers a unique opportunity to find answers to the question of how a major wound in the old city can be healed with contemporary building-cultural responses."
The next steps
Following today's basic commitment by the federal government to fund the project, the detailed applications for funding will be drawn up in phase 2. In this ongoing process - and on the basis of upcoming landmark decisions of Aachen's municipal politics - it will now be worked out how the Büchel of the future will take shape with the funding millions.
National urban development projects
National urban development projects are nationally and internationally visible, larger-scale urban development projects with clear impulses for the respective municipality or city, the region and urban development policy in Germany as a whole. They are characterised by a special quality standard with regard to the urban development approach, the building culture aspects and the participation processes, contribute to the realisation of the federal government's building policy objectives and have innovation potential. National urban development projects are projects that generally solve tasks and problems of considerable financial dimension. The focus is on the major challenges currently facing cities and municipalities in Germany (e.g. preservation of existing buildings, conversions, sustainable neighbourhood development).
A total of 24 projects for forward-looking urban development are being funded by the federal government with a total of around 75 million euros. 98 cities and municipalities from all over Germany applied for the funding.
More info Interesting facts about the Büchel can be found on the Internet at www.buechel-aachen.de
From Aprill 2021 the Demolition work on the Büchel multi-storey car park. All the info on this has been presented as part of an online event. The stream is still available on the YouTube channel of the city of Aachen: https://youtu.be/KQqFq6v_edA.
Within the framework of a cooperative planning workshop, three teams of experts developed three exciting designs for the Büchel, each with a focus on the major themes of "knowledge, living, meadow". The final presentation of the planning workshop, which took place digitally in January 2021, is also still available as a stream: https://youtu.be/AWSb5Gx3gKA.
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