City Hall Korça
TYPOLOGY: Public
COUNTRY: Albania
CITY: Korça
YEAR: 2019
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, Olgert Maxhe, BOLLES+WILSON
1) The conversion of the communist library on Bulevard Shën Gjergji was a parallel project to the construction of the (BOLLES+WILSON) New Library facing the new Cathedral Square. – These are all pieces of the puzzle that adds up to the BOLLES+WILSON Masterplan for the centre of the city of Korça.
2) The re-design introduced a new balcony to synthesise a previously uncomfortable Junction of marble columns and the white box upper floor. The perforated balustrade facilitates victorious football teams or the mayor addressing his public.
3) The four large windows to the balcony received new sliding sun screens. We are here only a stone’s throw from the BOLLES+WILSON 2014 Red Bar in the Sky.
4) The communist library was on the site of a demolished church – the façade geometry of this absent building had already been embossed into the paving (rotated on its ground line) with the pedestrianizing of Boulevard Shën Gjergji (BOLLES+WILSON Masterplan stage 1). This embedded history is now to be read in lasered text in Albanian (black on white) or English (white on black) on the new entrance ramp wall (the axis of rotation for the reanimated church geometry).
5) The old library interior is emptied for a spacious ‘one stop shop’ (public information). Here existing tiles and the wide span coffered ceilings are thematized (colour + integrated air outlets), the existing theatrical stairs gets a pink backdrop with scattered windows. (6+7)
6) Here existing tiles and the wide span coffered ceilings are thematized (colour + integrated air outlets).
7) The existing theatrical stairs gets a pink backdrop with scattered windows.
8) Part of the entrance level floor was removed for a stair that leads down to the new council chamber.
9) White public information islands are divided from individual offices by a lightweight glass wall.
10) Dividing – the council chamber from the Lobby. A translucent screen of green wine bottles was inserted between existing structural beams.
11) The floor slab removed for the council chamber creates a grand salon for political debate. Councillors desks are white, the visitors balcony pink (12+13)
14) Wine bottles set in mortar give an underwater ambience to council chamber.
15) Their open necks function as acoustic absorbers.
16) Councillors’ benches focus on the mayor’s desk, this is backed by a wooden screen with the double eagle Albanian national symbol.
17) Our client, the mayor Sotiraq Filo
18) A high clearstory window lights from the side
19) Next door to the new city hall an existing building (nineteenth century eclecticism) has been carefully restored for the offices of the mayor and his staff. It connects directly to the council chamber via a submerged tunnel (steps above). (19)
20) Within the mayors building – no architectural interventions were needed. It only remained for BOLLES+WILSON to apply a radical polychromy. (20,21,22,23)
Technology Centre
TYPOLOGY: Office / Laboratory / Conference
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 1993
GFA: 16.000 sqm
CLIENT: Technologiehof Münster GmbH
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters
The university zone of Münster (like most of what we still call cities) is a mixture of isolated large buildings, open space and fragments of small scale, residential patterns. Rather than attempting to stitch together buildings in a coherent or unifying pattern, the Technologiehof accepts its autonomy and in doing so legitimizes the voids between as today’s characteristic urban condition.
The three discrete objects of the Technologiehof also mark an end to the city. To the north are green fields, to the south (bridge side) is the semi-urban campus. Within their precise form the façades are a consequence of this double direction.
Three precise rectilinear forms (unambiguous autonomous objects) are a consequence of the construction system: standardised precast columns, beams, wall and floor panels. The expression of technology is limited to the shiny aluminium skin.
Small, highly serviced, commercially rented laboratories (bio-sensoric research, environment and telecommunications research) flank a middle building with offices and conference facilities. Triangular tapering winter gardens at third floor level provide relief from the absorbing rigour of the working spaces.
Red Bar in the Sky
TYPOLOGY: Public
COUNTRY: Albania
CITY: Korça
YEAR: 2014
CLIENT: Municipality of Korça
PHOTOS: © Andronira Burda, Daniel Dervishi, Nico Peleshi, Roman Mensing
In time for Christmas 2014 the city of Korça in Albania realized BOLLES+WILSON’s design for a campanile – the Red Bar in the Sky. It focuses the Theatre Square, the concluding phase of the B+W 2009 masterplan (International Competition 1st prize). The campanile which functions as a lookout tower for Korcians to appreciate the delicate grain of their city is located at the end of the central pedestrian boulevard ‘Shën Gjergji’ (landscaping by B+W). Opened in winter the Red Bar in the Sky was accompanied by an ice skating rink installed by Greek skating specialists.
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Related project:
Masterplan Korça City Centre, 2009, 1st prize
RS+Yellow Distribution
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.
BAZAAR GATE
CITY: Tirana
CLIENT: The Bregu Group
YEAR: 2024 – 2028
LOCAL FACILITATING OFFICE: X-PLAN
A 23 floor residential tower crowned by 5 floors of golden penthouses. It stands between Tirana’s central Skanderbeg Square and the revitalized Bazaar. A back seat to the Prime Minister promoted cluster of mega statements that will line up next to the gold façade of BOLLES+WILSON’s 2025 Intercontinental Hotel. We have sketched our golden cones against the pink matrix of Tirana’s jumbled DNA, punctuated by two more BOLLES+WILSON planned projects – The Lets Twist Again Tower and in the background the Vasarely Tower. We are grateful to Edi Rama for pumping Bazaar Gate’s original 15 floors to the 28 floors now under construction.
ORIGINAL 15 FLOOR
BAZAAR GATE CONCEPT
FAÇADE EVELOUTION
First came a Bamboo leaf printed pattern. Then in a workshop two façade proposals by X-Plan our Albanian collaborators were mathematically synthesized to produce the window/loggia matrix.
FROM THE SHOPPING COURT
CONCEPT B+W
RENDERINGS X-PLAN
PENTHOUSE REFINEMENT
As with all BOLLES+WILSON projects the penthouses were fine-tuned in an iterative exchange between sketched ambiences/compositions and the exactitude of digital co-ordination/technical requirements. The final, somewhat Chinese, sketch dissolves the golden crown in a nirvana of cloud.
