Baloo

Baloo
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

Rike's dog. I forget what breed he is.

A great sign

A great sign
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

The two drainage streams were a big concern to our proposals on the site. This sign was warning people not to drown in one of the pools that collected water to be piped under the canal.

Grounded boat

Grounded boat
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

There were a few strange details about the site. This was one. The boat was probably used by the brick factory in some capacity. But how it wound up about 100' away from the canal is anybody's guess.

Deterorating Brick Factory

Deterorating Brick Factory
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

Here is one of the walls of the former brick factory. We discovered that Germans (in general) prefer to preserve the character of these industrial sites whenever possible. While this structure was far beyond any repair effort, there was still a strong will to at least build any new buildings on top of the existing footprint.

Workshop Site

Site with German Students
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

Here you see the small harbor and canal that were the western border of our site.

Like I said earlier, this was a very complicated piece of land. Not only is it situated along a canal and a highway, there was an abandonded brick factory, several marginal commercial operations, some residental and agricultural uses, and an abandonded rail line that will be turned into a pedestrian pathway. If that weren't enough the site is home to a "red listed" (endangered) spieces of frog.

Buildings in glass shell

Buildings in glass shell
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

A very cool project we saw on the second day of our bus tour. The glass shell covers several freestanding buildings. The shell also contains photo-voltaik cells that generate more power than the entire site needs.

Note on landscaping: that's intentional. Our group seemed to notice that throughout our trim there was a lot less time/energy spent on manicuring the grounds outside of buildings.

Gasometer

Gasometer
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

A site we visited on the first day of our bus tour in the Rhur region. We ate lunch at a nearby mall - I had a bratwurst from a place in the food court.

Begining of our two-day bus tour

Office Building
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

This was the first site we visited - a large scale residental and office project near a canal that has experienced heavy industrial use over many decades.

Our tour guide, Peter, was informative, even if he did seem to generate some controversy among the German professors. In any case, he was very familiar with all the sites we visited.

The major industries in the area were steel production and coal extraction. After the 1980s, a lot of these operations were shut down. Their impact on the landscape took the form of enormous heaps of extracted soil and abandonded infrastructure. Massive reinvestment was necessary to find new uses for these big, dangerous, and expensive sites.

Limericks

Limericks
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

Central Dortmund

Central Dortmund
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

View from our host's flat

View from our host's flat
Originally uploaded by Helmers.

A single step

I forgot to charge my iPod before I left - so I used an outlet in a phonebooth at Detroit Metro. Unfourtanetly that only provided about 30 minutes of music. Not nearly enough for a trans-Atlantic flight. Regardless: I couldn't sleep on the plane and it seemed to drag on forever.

We arrived in Frankfurt early in the morning and met Strauss in the airport a few minutes after getting through EU customs. After a few phone calls two VW vans showed up to take us to Dortmund.

The first things I noticed were the windmills and their settlement pattern. Grandpa's description of their tiny farming villages seemed to be entierly accurate based on my "windshield survey" of the areas alongside the autobahn.

After a couple of hours on the road we arrive in Dortmund. A bit of shuffling between buildings and we meet our German host students. They took us to their cafeteria but for some reason after the long day of travel I was not particulary hungry. I munched on some brocolli and french fries. We were handed some of the materials we needed for our project and tours at this time, too.

An on campus train (dubbed the Iron Dragon because of its similarities to the roller coaster at Cedar Point) and an S-bahn train took us back to the flat we were to occupy for the next several days. The entire ride lasted about 25 minutes (if I remember correctly).

One thing I was not expecting that all the American students had noticed at this point was the amount of graffiti in Germany. According to one of our hosts there is a strong sub-culture directly linked to this sort of expression. Recently the penalty for graffiti was made more strict, more than a fine as far as I could tell. Compare this to Chicago where 'Mayor Daley's Graffiti Blaster' patrols the streets with a 500-gallon vat of chemical solvent.

Scott and I took a nap at Birthe and Kerstin's flat. We got up late in the afternoon and eventually met up with the rest of the students at Limerick's, an Irish pub in central Dortmund.