vZvdG House
TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: Netherlands
CITY: Enschede
YEAR: 2005
PHOTOS: © BOLLES+WILSON
Following the disastrous explosion of a fireworks factory in Enschede NL the new district masterplan by Pi de Bruijn, required a row of modernist villas along the new Museumlaan.
The somewhat draconian masterplan also specified that only architects of international repute could build here (BOLLES+WILSON was pleased to find their Italian chum Cino Zucchi as neighbour).
The masterplan required modernist villas, flat roofs – a geometric play of volumes. The Villa vZvdG almost fell of the list by being too small – But the east facing sun shaded terrace pumped it up to an acceptable volume. The owners, a couple with a teenaged son, needed a separately accessed office and an interior that allowed for constant rehanging of their painting collection – Petersburg hanging system. The façade of fibre cement panels is green + white striped (the traditional colours of barn doors in the east of the Netherlands). Because white stripes could not run around the corner (vertical green profile) the stripes were slipped up or down at the corner – the working title of the house was “Vertical Glitch House”.
100 West Cromwell Road
TYPOLOGY: Mixed Use
COUNTRY: UK
CITY: London
YEAR: 2008
CLIENT: Brookfield Development (UK) LTD, TESCO Stores Limited
PHOTOS MODEL: © Julian Vogt
The raked tower silhouette terminates the wide street axis for those exiting London westward. At its base the tower extends horizontally, a Fitness Arm (window to pool) frames the Tesco Plaza. The E Form begins at the third floor concourse, above existing carpark decks. The south elevation is glazed (winter gardens); the east and west are dark rippled ceramic.
Community Use: The inclusion of an additional swimming pool for the sole use of the local community has increased the Gross Internal Area of the community facility by some 30%. A Community Trust will be established to manage the pool and associated facilities.
St. Sebastian
TYPOLOGY: Educational
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY Münster
YEAR: 2013
COMPETITION: 2009, 1st Prize
PHOTOS: © Markus Hauschild, Christian Richters
HISTORICAL PHOTO: © S. Ahlbrand-Dornseif, R.Wakonigg
A church becomes a kindergarten.
Not heritage listed, already condemned, the St. Sebastian church built in 1962 and deconsecrated in 2008 has been revitalized with the most lively and positive function, i.e. with children.
The elegant elliptical form of the nave physically anchors its surrounding neighborhood. Two levels of kindergarten group rooms are housed within, the roofs of these become an all-weather play deck. Grass green impact-protection flooring and street lights give the play decks the ambience of an outdoor space.
A grid of 50 x 50 cm unglazed openings, the only originally glazed light source in the church, provide constant, natural ventilation. Cold in winter, comfortably temperate in summer, but always dry, this magical inside/outside space is flooded with light.
Adjacent to the kindergarten nave, a new street facing extension houses the main entrance, kitchen, offices, technical rooms and one multipurpose room. This is available for neighborhood events.
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.
Wohn und Stadtbau Housing Association Headquarters
TYPOLOGY: Office
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 2004
COMPETITION: 2001, First prize
CLIENT: Wohn und Stadtbau GmbH
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters
Entering the city from the north, a straight road, at the apex of its perspectival triangle a silhouette of cathedral and other church towers. Progressing into this picture, slightly downhill the view is gradually obscured, the outer traffic ring crossed.
The next 500 m rise, not a dramatic topography but enough to awaken expectation – ‘up there I will be in the city’. Buildings on the right enclose and to some extent counteract the latent drama of this ascent, this arrival. The left is undergoing a transformation, a re-configuring, a chance for a modulated roofline to enhance topographic character.
This is the intention of the sculpted silhouette of the new offices of the ‘Wohn+Stadtbau’ Housing Association. Its crest location is critical. The structured plaster façades of both volumes do not just echo but enhance site topography and the drama of entrance.
Entering the building involves a counter and smaller scale spatial sequence. The building front steps back from the heavily trafficked street to a transparent foyer. The ground floor facilitates intensive visitor traffic, waiting spaces extend into the internal court and playground.
