Danube Ruralscapes

Imagine active village clusters where traditional and local techniques meet innovative design principles and technology - shaping a sustainable future rooted in heritage.

Building on the legacy of DANUrB and DANUrB+, we are scaling up cooperation along the Danube, bringing new heritage-based building solutions to life for rural communities.

To make rural communities the architects of their own future!

Danube Ruralscapes helps self-organized village clusters across the Danube Region co-create climate-conscious, heritage-based, and inclusive rural landscapes - rooted in local identity and designed for the future. 

We combine design thinking, participatory governance, and heritage-based planning to reimagine how rural areas grow - not from top-down policies, but from the bottom-up.

Key Values:

• Community-led processes: Engaging local actors in shaping spatial visions
• Place-based tools: Co-creating methods grounded in architectural and landscape identity
• Transnational cooperation: Connecting village clusters to learn, pilot, and scale up together
•  New European Bauhaus principles: Embedding beauty, sustainability, and inclusion in every step

Danube Ruralscapes creates a practical and adaptable Ruralscapes Planning Model, designed for real use by rural communities across Danube. 

Key Deliverables: 

• Transnational Network of Knowledge for sustainable heritage-based rural architecture
• Action Plans for rural village-clusters in 7 pilot micro-regions
• Architectural & Rural Landscape Identity Guides to support design and planning
• Governance models to strengthen self-organization and local leadership
• Policy recommendations & replication tools for wider use across the Danube Region
• Field-tested practices aligned with Interreg and New European Bauhaus principles

Follow us on our journey empowering communities! #DANUrBCommunity