_{PILOT STUDY 2015—2017, IMPLEMENTATION ONGOING}

_{Funded by Flintstone Engineering SC}

In 2013 – 14, Dirk Donath, Lukas Veltruský (viertewand), Florian Geddert (plus 4930 Architektur) & Tsedeke Yihunie Woldu (Flintstone PLC) developed a conceptual scheme for the creation of small dense urban settlements in the rural areas of Ethiopia. The idea behind this project was to reduce the massive flow of people to the big cities by creating a livelihood where most of the Ethiopian population currently lives – in the rural areas.

Since less people are needed in the agricultrual sector, incentives for secondary and tertiary industry must be made. To create places which foster such a development is one of the main goals of the Tukuls to Dachas (T2D) project. It is an integrated urban development model, combining efficient transport and water infrastructure and an urban layout promoting walkability, friendly inner-city development and flexibility for the many different economic activities (from large production to small backyard workshops). The circular street around the city shall keep the noisy through traffic out of the city centre and define a boundary for avoiding horizontal growth in order to secure valuable land for food production.

The project was presented to the Ethiopian government and received lot of attention, leading to the integration of the small town development in the countries' Growth and Development Plan II from 2015. It stipulates the development of plans for 8,000 rural centres and the establishment of urban centres to implement these development plans until 2020.

Flintstone PLC began in early 2018 with the concrete planning of 13 model towns, adapting the idealized T2D-scheme to the actual conditions of the particular sites. Under extensive personnel efforts and heavy necessary persuasion work, in May 2019 the final plans for 12 Kebeles - towns with 3,500 to 4,000 inhabitants - are undergoing the approval procedure, two further towns have just been successfully approved for implementation by the council and are to be realised from September 2019 on.

In the research project IN³ Integrated Infrastructure, the plans for these cities are used as test cases for the development of new computer-based planning methods.