KALDEWEI COMPETENCE CENTER
TYPOLOGY: Retail
COUNTRY: German
CITY: Ahlen
YEAR: 2005
COMPETITION: Invited, 1ˢᵗ Prize
GFA: 1.460 sqm
CLIENT: Franz Kaldewei GmbH & Co. KG
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters, © 2024 Walter Knoll
TALE OF THE TUB
Kaldewei are the Mercedes of bath manufacturers. Their robust 3.5mm tubs are formed over an iron mold by robotic arms (the steel screams while being pressed into shape). Tubs are then enameled, the historic but still functioning enamel kiln is glimpsed as the conclusion of the visitor’s trajectory through the new information and exhibition center. Façade planks (wrapping both new visitor facilities, adjacent smelting plant and warehouse) are enameled in the colours used for bathtubs. Entrance is across the paved plan of the original Kaldewei family villa, nearby are terracotta vats used in the nineteenth century for transporting vitreous enamel crystals.
KKC Plan at Ground level - PROMENADE ARCHITECTURAL
The façade Screens - plunging into a tub or choosing a whirlpool bath are discrete activities. The lobby is clad in a cosy mosaic of wooden panels with integrated lights and air outlets. The promenade architectural sequence leads up past a Bizatza tiled shower niche. Below - the wardrobe lurks behind the purple memory of the absent Kaldewei family house.
KKC Plan at upper level -EXHIBITION SALON
Like Carl Andre artworks, bathtub and shower tray designs are clustered in groups of four - spot-lit minimalist sculptures. On the grey salon end-wall are coloured wax circles by artist Gro Luhn. Beyond the salon visitors look down to the firey drama of the enamel kiln.
KKC Plan at lower level – PLUNGE CELLS
Purchasing a luxury whirlpool bath is similar to buying a small car, one demands a test drive or in this case a test bath. Toweling robes are donned in changing pods before progressing to sensuous cells, each with its own gestalt and bath model. Busloads of potential customers arrive from all over Europe engendering interesting sociological observations - Germans each require new bath water while Belgians are happy to sit in the water of the previous bather. Back in the lobby a gallery exhibition of historic bath artifacts was sketched but not realized.
Housing at St. Sebastian
TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 2016
COMPETITION: 2009, 1st prize
GFA: 8.180 sqm
CLIENT: Wohn + Stadtbau GmbH
AWARDS: “Exemplary publicly funded residential projects” – North Rhine-Westphalia Regional Prize for Architecture,
Housing and Urban Development 2017
BDA Münster-Münsterland award for best buildings 2017,
honorable mention
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, BOLLES+WILSON
In 2009 BOLLES+WILSON won the 1st prize for housing and a kindergarten on the site of the 1960ies St Sebastian Church. It was expected that the emblematic oval form of the church be demolished. Instead the kindergarten colonized the nave. It was opened in 2013 – a much published reuse with interior green weather protected play decks.
2015 phase 2 was complete, a peripheral frame of housing protecting the kindergarten from a noisy street and giving a precise edge to the adjacent park.
Market realities are clearly visible in the differentiation of the social (subsidized) housing with its bright white and pink plaster facade to Hammer Str. and the owner-occupied flats with their noble dark brick facade facing the mature trees in the park.
One corner tree is explicitly embraced by the projecting white sheet of the street facade.
Only kitchen and bathroom windows are allowed to receive traffic noise; living rooms and balconies turn inwards to the quiet green space surrounding the kindergarten.
Unexpected colour animates the lift and stair tower and the setback roof apartments. This polychrome trope also animates the skyline of the park elevation. Here big white frames give a grand order, a vertical hierarchy. But ultimately it is the grandeur of the existing trees that claim the status of leading actors in the spatial choreography.
Napoli Bagnoli
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.
Mittelhafen
TYPOLOGY: Competition / Office
COUNTRY: German
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 2020
COMPETITION: Closed competition, 2nd Prize
GFA: 12.740 sqm
CLIENT: Ärzteversorgung Westfalen-Lippe
Both the property side facing the city port and the street side to “Am Mittelhafen” require representative façades. Therefor a building in the north-south axis is required, which fills the property over the entire length. The two narrow views speak a suitably dignified language – to the waterfront through an invigorating silhouette that adds a building with personality to the row of existing office buildings. The opposite side facing the street is emphasized by an expressive façade – in contrast to the buildings in the immediate vicinity, which do not have such a concise addresses. This gives the quarter a much needed “urban flair”.
City Hall Willich
TYPOLOGY: Office
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Willich
YEAR: 2003
COMPETITION: 2001, First prize
GFA: 2.630 sqm
CLIENT: Stadt Willich
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters, © BOLLES+WILSON
The entrance to Schlosspark Neersen is framed by the parallel sides of the Schloss / City Hall and the new building for the City Hall technical Departments.
With its wide span-cantilevered canopy and transparent facade the new addition presents its functions like a building scale vitrine.
The enclosing back wall is in a discrete and modest industrial brick, in keeping with the suburban surrounds and at the same time a reference to the nearby Mies van der Rohe Haus Lange and Haus Esters.
