Bernhardstrasse, Münster, Christian Richters

Bernhardstrasse

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 1997

GFA: 4.950 sqm

CLIENT: LVM Versicherungen

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

A knitting together of street lines and block interior in a modest scaled residential district. The theme is more Vitruvius’ comoditas than grand or explicit architectural narrative. Street lines, precise boundaries between public and private realms are anchored with a solid dark, oil-fired, almost industrial and implicitly north German brick plinth. In contrast the upper floors in white plaster transcend this intentional massivity through their material and geometric abstraction. The two layers dovetailed together framing private terraces and necessary setbacks.

The 26 apartments are vertically ordered. Small units suitable for elderly occupants or studio apartments with garden below, the larger first floor apartments have generous balconies while the upper two floors are organised as maisonettes. An urbane facilitating of daily life is in the interiors and layout achieved with a reduced material palette – wood, stone, plaster.

Bernhardstrasse, Münster, Christian Richters
Bernhardstrasse, Münster, Christian Richters
Bernhardstrasse, Münster, Christian Richters
Bernhardstrasse, Münster, Modell, model
Bernhardstrasse, Münster, drawing, isometrie, Zeichnung, isometry
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters

Falkenried

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Masterplan, Residential, Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Hamburg-Eppendorf

YEAR: 2004

COMPETITION: Masterplan Competition 1999, First Prize

GFA: 34.500 sqm

CLIENT: Bayerische Hausbau GmbH, Munich

AWARDS: German Urban Planning Award 2004

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

The anatomy of redundant bus and tram workshop/sheds was co-opted as the organising template for this 1999 premiated Quartier Masterplan. An east west piazza focusses the networked block interior.

The principles of the Masterplan were: The ‘loftising’ of one workshop shed, a brick administration building which grows into penthouses and bus garage doors which envelope row-houses.

Southward from the piazza a spatial choreography of Office Slab and Housing Tower leads over a raised terrace with a second (zigzag) office facade, past a café/bar, down an Eisenstein stair to street and canal. This perspectival sequence – an opening and closing of large scale urban rooms – is homogenised by its rich and tactile material, a ‘Hamburg-solid turf-fired brick’.

Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Hamburg, Falkenried, sketch, drawing, Peter Wilson, handzeichnung, Skizze, Perspektive
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
korca city centre masterplan_korca_model

Korça City Centre Masterplan

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Masterplan
COUNTRY: Albania
CITY: Korça
YEAR: 2009
COMPETITION: 1rst Prize
CLIENT: Municipality of Korça
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, © BOLLES+WILSON

On Thursday 16 July 2009 the mayor and international jury pronounced BOLLES+WILSON winner of the competition for the new Korça City Centre Masterplan. The international two-stage competition was decided in favour of the Muenster based office for its concept of “Scenographic Urbanism”, a choreographing of new buildings and public spaces which pays close attention to the existing grains and potentials of this small but spatially complex city.

Surrounded by dramatic mountains and a wide arcadian valley Korça focuses a region of 360,000 inhabitants. Its urbane morphology reflects the wealth and ambitions of returning emigrants as well as historically strong trade relations with central Europe. Many Novecento and Art Nouveau villas are now restored, many are still crumbling. The aim of the competition was to find a clear concept, which integrates a traffic and pedestrian rational with the qualitative and development needs of the city – a commercial strategy, administrative facilities and residential development. The competition brief also emphasised that the scale of the new Korça should be respectful and appropriate to the historic scale.

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BOLLES+WILSON identified five zones for the revitalisation of the 197,000 sqm city centre. Each zone possessing its own unique character, together they add up to a network of urbane public spaces. At one end of the centre the Cathedral of ‘Christus Resurrection’ anchors, at the other end a Commercial Anchor is added. These are connected by the Boulevard Shen Gjergji – now transformed into a ‘Cultural Promenade’. Reduction in expansive communist road widths allows an extension of the Cathedral Square. This square is planned three steps above the street and framed by café pergolas, an optical filter between traffic and event space. A large stage left of the cathedral and a smaller stage to the right facilitate a wide variety of events. Curved paving stripes echo the Cathedral geometry and serve to discipline market stands.

New figure on the Korça skyline and counterpoint to the Cathedral, a “Vertical Mall” occupies and marshals the parade-ground scaled Theatre Square. A new commercial strip extends from here to the Bazaar via new shopping/housing blocks and a new Bus Station Roof – a Farmers-market platform.

This – the second of the five zones – creates a new commercial hub in downtown Korça.

The third zone is rescripted as a ‘Cultural promenade’, a semi-pedestrian connection between Cathedral and downtown Mall. Here a number of significant buildings such as the ‘Education Museum’ are extended out into the tree-lined, shady and café-filled Promenade as a carpet-like patterned paving, a choreographed sequence of ‘Patterned Squares – Urban Living Rooms’.

The fourth zone revitalises a villa zone with carefully placed new development. In order not to overwhelm the delicate historic scale of Korça a ‘Patchwork Strategy’ is invented – new buildings are paired with restored existing villas to form ‘Development Islands’ (shared economic benefit) and thereby create a network of active block-internal passages.

The final zone of the Masterplan is the ‘Enlarged Park’ (‘green heart’). Here a new triangular-block frames the park edge and by the sale of public land for private development finances the upgrading of the park itself.

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Related project:
Red Bar in the Sky, Theatre Square, Korça, 2014

korca city centre masterplan_korca_aerial photo
Korça city centre before BOLLES+WILSON interventions
korca city centre masterplan_korca_siteplan
Masterplans with interventions
korca city centre masterplan_korca_zoning
Zoning
korca city centre masterplan_korca_cathedral
New Cathedral Square
korca city centre masterplan_korca_market
Market stands at the Bazaar
korca city centre masterplan_korca_3d
Cafés at the Cathedral Square
korca city centre masterplan_korca_3d
The Vertical Mall
korca city centre masterplan_korca_sketch
Activated passages in the Villa Zone
korca city centre masterplan_korca_plan boulevard
Cultural Promenade with Patterned Squares as Urban Living Rooms
korca city centre masterplan_korca_cathedral
Cultural Promenade under construction at the Boulevard Shen Gjergji
korca city centre masterplan_korca_collage
Cathedral façade carpet
korca city centre masterplan_korca_construction old cathedral
korca city centre masterplan_korca_new municipality
Old library with new cathedral façade carpet
korca city centre masterplan_korca_roman mensing_boulevard
New Boulevard Shen Gjergji
korca city centre masterplan_korca
Conversations in front of the old library
korca city centre masterplan_korca_sketch
Sketch of the BOLLES+WILSON interventions
korca city centre masterplan_korca_model
Model
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg

Dom Quartier

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Magdeburg

YEAR: 2002

COMPETITION: Invited Competition 1997, First Prize

GFA: 48.000 sqm

CLIENT: Nord/LB

PHOTOS: © Roland Halbe, Klemens Ortmeyer, Christian Richters, Edmund Summer

The extensive Square of Germany’s oldest Gothic Cathedral is framed to the east and north by Neo-Baroque (post-war reconstructed) Parliament and Chancellery for the state of Sachsen-Anhalt. The enclosure of the square is completed with these two new blocks housing a bank (Nord LB), Chamber of Commerce, offices, shops and restaurants.

The wider urban context is noble but battered and heterogeneous in the extreme. Only occasional fragments of the medieval or 19th century Prussian Administration city remain, marooned between socialist system built housing slabs. With German Reunification and the subsequent building boom Magdeburg like most east German cities was the recipient of a number of inner city shopping blocks and speculative offices competing in the free market rush with an explosion of out-of-town shopping and office boxes. In the subsequent economically depressed atmosphere the two new ‘Domplatz’ blocks represent foundation stones for a considered qualitative and long term investment in the culture of the city.

Two blocks are divided into three (three users) by the introduction of the ‘Bankgasse’ which bisects and animates the larger block, extends a Domplatz tree Allee and focuses on the neighbouring St. Sebastian. A compositional strategy of scenographic sequences (external and internal), and significant details (serpentine corners), rigorous geometries and poetic moments.

Volumetric stringency (a rigorous facade height of 20 metres and paired windows), are ameliorated by the patchwork texture and colour variations of the blue/grey stone facade (Brazilian Azul Macaubas). A haptic richness not unlike the irregular weathering of the 800 year old cathedral stones. Glazed and canopied Roof Pavilions set up above the rigorous parapet line a sequence of cross city vector relationships.

Systematized Office Interiors are interrupted by a larger sequence of movement spaces with light walls and material elaboration (Banking Hall, Atrium, Entrance Lobbies, Rooftop Restaurant).

Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Plan
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto, Roland halbe
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, sketch, drawing, Zeichnung,
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, dom Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, interior, interieur
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, Erdgeschoss, groundfloor, floorplan
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, Zeichnung, detail, schnitt, section
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, drawing, sketch, Skizze, Zeichnung, Peter Wilson
Magdeburg, Nord LB, dom Quartier, Drawing, Sketch, Peter Wilson
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, foto, christian richters

Dieze Training Centre

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Educational

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Castrop-Rauxel

YEAR: 1996

COMPETITION: 1994, First Prize

GFA: 3.000 sqm

CLIENT: GEWO, Castrop-Rauxel

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

A branch of the Open University Hagen and a Women’s Retraining Centre – shared conference and seminar facilities. Anchor box plus geometric extensions. The alien conference element cantilevers acrobatically. Strict plan geometries evolve a three dimensional language of interlocking materials.

Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, foto, christian richters
Diese training centre, Castrop Rauxel, foto, christian richters
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, foto, christian richters
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, plan, schwarzplan, lageplan
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, plan, ground floor, Erdgeschoss
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, plan, ground floor, obergeschoss
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, sketch, Peter Wilson, drawing, Zeichnung, Skizze, perspecitv, Perspektive