Students’ Rhine riverfront redo designs wow Bonn mayor

Study abroad students in Bonn, Germany during the fall 2010 semester from Texas A&M’s College of Architecture impressed the city’s mayor and staff with their presentations of a master plan and detailed site plans for a 10-kilometer redevelopment along the Rhine River.

“They really liked the quality of the work and their understanding of the local culture in their designs,” said Chang-Shan Huang, associate professor of landscape architecture, who led the students’ efforts.

The group consisted of 26 undergraduates, 21 fifth-year landscape architecture students, four fourth-year urban planning students, and one third-year environmental design student.

The presentations for the section along the Rhine, a diverse area consisting of commercial, residential, industrial, cultural and historic areas, were the result of research and design work conducted during their semester in Bonn.

Projects included proposals to improve the site of a landmark concert hall honoring Bonn native Ludwig von Beethoven, turning a dingy, graffiti-attracting underpass into a solar-powered light installation and improving the area around a United Nations campus.

Overall, students’ proposals sought to increase the connection of the land to the Rhine, said Huang.

“People visiting Bonn for the first time don’t know where the river is because the city and river are not well connected,” he said. “Students designed a riverfront to increase the visibility of the river and bring more people to it.”

Working in two-person teams, students learned about Bonn’s physical, social, economic, demographic, historical, cultural and regulatory characteristics in the first phase of the project.

In phase II, students, working in six teams, developed a comprehensive design program and schematic master plan for the project area. Each team drew on its new knowledge to create plans while considering their respective site’s history, existing land use, future functions and characteristics of user profiles.

During the final phase, students developed detailed plans for a site of their choice in the project area demonstrating how the goals, objectives and concepts established for the master plan can be implemented at the site design level.

A reporter for Bonn’s largest circulated newspaper was at the review, and an account of the presentation session and overview of the proposals was in the next day’s paper.

Huang published a portfolio of the student’s work in two hardbound books.