Project “Clay building in Weinviertel”

Project description
The "Clay Building in Weinviertel" project initiated by BOKU Vienna, the Top Citizen Science initiative and the Museumsdorf Niedersulz has set itself the goal of intensively researching the significance of clay as a building material for future use.
For centuries, clay has been of great importance as a building material in many regions of Austria and thus a central ecological and social factor.

Nowadays, clay buildings are often rebuilt or demolished, which means a continuous decline of the traditional clay building stock and thus a part of the Weinviertel building identity. On the other hand, loam is becoming increasingly important as a building material primarily for ecological reasons.

In-depth knowledge of traditional clay building structures supports an understanding of the cultural, social and landscape influence of clay as a material and is crucial for a conscious, adapted handling of clay in the course of new buildings, conversions and renovations.

To date, there are no data on the actual clay building stock in the Weinviertel, which would be crucial for future spatial planning measures.
The collection of these data requires local and historical knowledge. These should therefore be collected, classified and evaluated as part of a Citizen Science approach.
Be the aim of the project is to encourage people from all over the Weinviertel who are interested in building with clay to use their own research and observations to create important data for further scientific processing.

The project "Clay building in Weinviertel" is carried out as part of the Top Citizen Science initiative, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research.