The second stop on our RIS4Danu EDP workshop tour has led us to Germany’s blackforest (09.-10.03.2023).
In close collaboration with our regional partner IHK Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg we managed to organise two successful EDP workshops to identify transformative roadmaps for the revitalisation of an Old Slaughterhouse in Schwenningen and the closed HERMLE clock-making factory in Gosheim. We kick-started the workshops with a joint session at the IHK’s brand new “House of Business” in Villingen-Schwenningen and continued our Entrepreneurial Discovery journey with two separate workshop sessions at both sites.
The HERMLE clock-making factory, which – in total – is about 13.000m² in size and located in the city centre, has been bought by the municipality of Gosheim in late 2019. Currently, a broad citizen participation process is ongoing, which should “co-determine” the future use of this site. Taking into consideration regional opportunities as well local constraints, RIS4Danu workshop participants identified for the HERMLE clock-making factory the transformative goal of turning the site into a “Community Hub”, including shared housing, energy-cooperatives, and shared mobility areas, all fully powered by renewable energies.
The Old Slaughterhouse is privately owned by Hans-Walter Haller (manager of Haller Industriebau GmbH), and there are quite ambitious plans for a “Haller Innovation Quarter” (HIQ) under discussion. These plans envisage various future uses for the site and offer significant cross-fertilisation potential for the RIS4Danu project. Workshop participants developed the transformative goal to expand current plans by including R&D testbeds for hydrogen as well as clean water applications, complemented by training and tech-transfer facilities.
In a next step, owners will further develop the ideas with local authorities, research and industry partners and use their newly established contacts to identify and visit best practice examples in neighbouring regions.
A press report on the workshop in Gosheim can be found here (in German).
