House of Democracy

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Competition / Educational, Public

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Frankfurt

YEAR: 2025

COMPETITION: Open ideas competition according to RPW

GFA: 6.200 sqm (new) + 14.000 sqm (existing)

CLIENT: Stadt Frankfurt

NO NEW CONSTRUCTION ON PAULSPLATZ
A cohesive ensemble that offers visitors the opportunity to explore the history and significance of democracy.

THE DEMOCRATIC LOBBY
Positioned between the Paulskirche and the New Building, the foyer serves as a central link between all functions: the Paulskirche with its historical exhibition, the New Building with its event spaces, workshops, and permanent and temporary exhibitions, and the Kämmerei with its library, laboratories, and offices.

LOCATION & URBAN DESIGN
The New Building accommodates a 368-seat event hall, temporary exhibition spaces on the lower floors, and a permanent exhibition on the upper levels. Its deliberate placement along Berliner Straße preserves the openness of Paulsplatz, fostering a compelling visual and spatial dialogue with the Paulskirche.

MATERIALITY
The solid portions of the façades of both the New Building and the Democratic Lobby are clad in red Main sandstone. Walls and roof are constructed from glued laminated timber trusses in a sandwich system, with glass layers on both interior and exterior faces. The south façade integrates approximately 600 m² of photovoltaic panels, ensuring a sustainable energy contribution.

CONSIDERED POSITIONING
The vertical circulation core (8.50 × 4.80 m) is strategically placed in front of the closed eastern façade of the former Federal Audit Office building, preventing unwanted overshadowing while maintaining clear visual connections.

A greenhouse of democracy
rs yellow distribution_munster_markus hauschild

RS+Yellow Distribution – Phase 2

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Light Industrial, Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2009

GFA: 9.200 sqm

CLIENT: Rainer Scholze

AWARDS: German Façade Award 2010

PHOTOS: © Guido Erbring, Markus Hauschild, Christian Richters

When is a warehouse a lake? – in Münster.

This is the third BOLLES+WILSON building for the German-wide furniture chain RS+Yellow, an extension of the homebase storage and distribution centre by 7,000 sqm. The new rectangular building volume stands adjacent to the original 1992 corrugated aluminium warehouse.

The 60 x 66 m two stores ‘Big-Box’ is (as is usual for industrial architecture) reduced to a regular grid of pre-cast columns and widespan floor slabs. Facades are a standard lightweight concrete system. Verticality is emphasised with pyjama colour stripes interspersed with zinc coated grid stripes. These absorb all windows and necessary smoke outlets into an uninterrupted colour curtain.

This warehouse and even perhaps the 1,500 sqm of offices above the delivery bays are precisely realised but relatively conventional. The big surprise comes on arriving at the rooftop meeting rooms and executive offices. Through the intervention of the fire brigade (choreographed alarm) the roof of the building has been flooded – a 45 x 65 m reflecting pool.

The edge detail, laser levelled into invisibility, increases the metaphysical unreality of this sky reflector. Underwater compartments eliviate the risk of mini-tsunamis. Spillage is collected in edge channels and channelled to an internal cistern.

A wooden boardwalk fronts the large format sliding glass facade. A pier extends out to the centre of the water world. Here one can sit surrounded by geometric groves of bamboo. From here the south facing glass front of the roof pavilion reflects again the rippling expanse of water. The facade itself is shaded by a projecting steel pergola and a curtain of louvers descending at the press of a button from its outer edge.

This choreographed overlap of inside and outside, of natural and artificial, of direct and reflected light, create a unique atmosphere which could be described as an industrial scaled Japanese Tea-House.

rs yellow distribution_munster_markus hauschild
Offices with open sun louvres
rs yellow distribution_munster_markus hauschild
Offices with closed sun louvres
rs yellow distribution_munster_markus hauschild
View over the rooftop pool
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View from the office with open sun louvres
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View from the office with closed sun louvres
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Warehouse façade
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Fire brigade flooding the pool
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Pool getting filled
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Ground floor plan
rs yellow distribution_munster_plann_roof top
Upper floor plan
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Section
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson

Napoli Bagnoli

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Competition / Area development / Masterplan

COUNTRY: Italy

CITY: Naples

YEAR: 2020

COMPETITION: Closed competition

COLLABORATORS: OTTAVIANI ASSOCIATI, GREENCURE landscape & healing gardens, Gianluca Peluffo&Partners Architettura srl, Nicola Gallinaro

The proposal is based on two complementary strategic choices: the interpretation of the park as a green flow, made up of a great variety of landscapes within which there are clearings that welcome the various episodes of industrial archeology, and the redesign of the seafront in continuity up to the island of Nisida, making it possible to expand the space for the beach and the Porto Turistico.

Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Collage
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Zip Line
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilsoni
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters

Landscaping Hotel NY

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Landscape

COUNTRY: The Netherlands

CITY: Rotterdam – Kop van Zuid

YEAR: 2006

CLIENT: City of Rotterdam (dS+U), Hotel New York partner

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

The former embarkation point for emigration to the New World – a ‘Holland/America’ theme. Two landscapes (intimate Dutch gardens and a prairie-like American event- space) are divided by a conceptual border. Large scale text (like a Steinberg drawing) is inlayed in the pavement. To date the Dutch side including the Hotel Terrace, Maaskant Pavilion, vent Funnels, playground and intimate Dutch gardens is complete. despite regular dockings of American warships the narrative landscape on the American side of the Dutch-Amerika border remains unexecuted.

Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Plan_Pavillon
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Siteplan_Lageplan
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Plan
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Sketch_Skizze_Peter Wilson
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993

Kita 102

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Educational

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Frankfurt

YEAR: 1992 / 2014

CLIENT: Stadt Frankfurt

AWARDS: German Architecture Award 1993, Commendation

PHOTOS: © Waltraud Krase (1992), Rainer Mader (2014)

The 1992 Kita 102 in Frankfurt – Griesheim was one of BOLLES+WILSON’s first buildings in Germany. 22 years later it has been extended. What does it mean to revisit an early work? To measure if it has stood the test of time? Or even if the architectural themes of that time are still pertinent today?

What is immediately obvious is that a generous two floor, curvaceous and somewhat expressive sculpted volume is no longer feasible under today’s stringent budget restrictions (the political promise to deliver a kindergarten place for every child). The new extension is single storey, docking on to and sloping down from, an original 7 m high sport and sleeping hall.

The 3 original ground floor classrooms were for conventional pre-school kindergarten use, and the upper 2 rooms after-school homework facilities for older kids. The 3 new ground level classrooms extend kindergarten functions, kids can run out directly from group to garden.

The original building expands in width and height, a conical volume explained at the time as a metaphor for growing – spaces expand and contract as kids run from one end to another. A narrative scenario that extended to details like 2.10m high doors for teachers beside 1.50 m doors only for kids. Draconian budgets preclude such whimsical game playing in the new extension, perhaps it is also no longer the time for architecture to reflect on its syntactical potential. In the original Kita four windows conspired to inscribe a giant letter K across the facade. A readable building for children who are learning to read. Today it is left to colour to signify. A thematized May-Green has been here co-opted (as in almost every second contemporary Kindergarten) to signal a fresh, playful optimism. It is the only internal colour. Also a green horizontal beam/gutter above a south facing glass facade benevolently grows extended sun-blinds (also May green) to wrap the sunny side in a Mediterranean-like slab of shade. Window articulation is no longer expressive, a tough neighbourhood requires defensive measures if night cooling is to be activated.

What was in 1993 described, as an east-west slab turning its back to the noise of a nearby autobahn is now a very long east west slab, still turning its back and opening southward to an extended linear play-ground.

Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
1st stage (1992)
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
2nd stage (2014)
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993