The spa and congress town of Bad Windsheim in Middle Franconia hosted this year's annual conference of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Fachwerkstädte e.V. (ADF) and the Deutsche Fachwerkstraße (DFS). 

Half-timbered houses, churches, old alleyways - an attractive, historic town center adorns the former free imperial city. There are impressive half-timbered buildings to discover on every corner: Bad Windsheim has a total of 211 registered half-timbered constructions, 145 of which are in the historic old town alone. This made the town particularly suitable for the meeting of German half-timbered towns. The town became a member of the ADF in 2017; as a founding member, Bad Windsheim has been part of the regional route “Franconia - enjoyment with wine and beer” within the DFS since 2021. Numerous museums, such as the Franconian Open-Air Museum, as well as the Frankentherme thermal baths and the surrounding Steigerwald and Frankenhöhe nature parks not only attract representatives of the German half-timbered towns to the picturesque town, but also make it an attractive travel and adventure destination in Middle Franconia all year round.

The 2024 annual meeting of the ADF and DFS focused in particular on the three ongoing ADF projects. The HORIZON 20 - TExTOUR project with European partners from eight other countries will end in September 2024. The ADF's TExTOUR sub-project in the tri-national Umgebindeland developed strategies to open up peripheral rural regions for tourism. At the end, the past three years of the project will be highlighted, presented at a joint TExTOUR conference in September and handed over to the partners in Upper Lusatia for future development.
Since 2023, the “Sustainable towns and centers - Bleicherode 700PLUS” project has been focusing on reactivating the town center of Bleicherode to make it an attractive place to live and spend time for guests and locals alike. As part of a contract award, the ADF is developing a tourism concept for the town.

The annual conference in Bad Windsheim is also the starting point for the Triennial 25 within the National Urban Development Policy. The projects of the 13 participating cities determined at the end of last year were presented at the ADF Annual General Meeting on April 25. The contributions to what is now the 6th Fachwerk Triennale show the diverse possibilities for the forward-looking development of half-timbered towns.
In addition to the projects, the annual conference was dominated by the awarding of the German Half-Timbered House Prize 2025, which will allow owners of half-timbered houses in ADF member towns to submit their outstanding renovations and restorations. Recently, however, the German Half-Timbered House Prize has also been awarded to member towns for innovative concepts, plans or realizations that make a significant contribution to the future viability of half-timbered towns. The awards will be presented next year to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the ADF.

The projects as well as the German Half-Timbered Town Award and next year's anniversary of the ADF illustrate the large and necessary fields of action of the half-timbered towns for the future. The participants at the annual conference in Bad Windsheim agreed that the ADF is tackling these tasks in close cooperation with its member towns.