BP Lingen Administrative and Service Centre
TYPOLOGY: Office / Laboratory
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Lingen
YEAR: 2019
CLIENT: BP Europe Lingen
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing
On September 20th 2019 the new BP Lingen ‘Lighthouse Project’ officially opened. Such a fast track project with six months planning and one year construction time required focussed and co-ordinated teamwork from architects and contractors (Hofschröer/Mainka, Lingen).
The new building at a safe distance from the refinery (technicians cycle back and forth) is nestled in a pine forrest and houses administration, laboratories, workshops and a BP fire station (with training tower).
The BOLLES+WILSON design manifests BP’s ‘One Team’ philosophy. Open plan offices on three levels surround a spectacular light filled atrium. Animated by ‘team oriented break-out spaces’, this communicative heart of the complex is crowned by a pyramid of triangular pneumatic pillows. An illuminated lighthouse that hovers above treetops, in dialogue with the nearby refinery.
Vertical sun louvers across the office and fire station facade echo BP logo colours as does the colourful and dynamic interior landscape.
Loddenheide Water Purification Plant
TYPOLOGY: Technical
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Munster
YEAR: 2021
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters, © BOLLES+WILSON
40 Years of Water Research – 20 years of Water Pumping
The 2001 Loddenheide Water Filtration Plant is almost BOLLES+WILSON’s smallest building. It has for the last 20 years been cleaning and filtering road runoff before it lands in the re-absorption pond of the Loddenheide Business Park. The pond itself is a re-naturalizing success, now a bird sanctuary for countless water foul. The glazed vitrine of the pump house now stands serenely in winter snow or spring blossom. Its machines turn two Archimedes Screw Pumps, aerating the water before splashing into a circular filtration tank. The rectangular plan geometry of the first is set against the circular form of the second. A line of poplar trees, now fully grown, bisects these two fundamental geometries. For those inexperienced at reading metaphoric content into infrastructural equipment the fences surrounding the two machines come with subtext – although the supergraphic H2O on the fence mesh is not readable when approached front on, only when seen in the oblique is it there to underline the theme of ‘Water’.
The Business Park was at the outset renamed Freedom Park by the Dalai Lama, then visiting Münster. The Dalai Lama Commemoration Stone stands 120 meters away from the pumping facilities – just follow the line of poplars. It is certainly BOLLES+WILSON’s smallest work. To read its text one must walk three times around the dark green stone. We like to believe that the rainy day inauguration photo documents the Dalai Lama gleefully asking Münsters lady Mayor – ‘Is it really a BOLLES+WILSON design’.
BOLLES+WILSON water research began in 1976 with Peter Wilson’s Iconic Water House. In 2018 the watery trajectory continued with the second warehouse for RS+Yellow both with ‘Infinity Pool’ roofs.
Himmelsscheibe Exhibition Centre
TYPOLOGY: Cultural
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Nebra
YEAR: 2004
COMPETITION: Invited competition
AWARDS: Special price
An observation Tower connects an archaeological dig to its wider landscape. Nearby the Corten clad visitors centre with its cargo of sky disk (4,000 years old sky map) paraphernalia wriggles a few metres above rolling fields casting at its extremity a laconic glance skywards.
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.
Leo’s Gate Coworking und Coliving
TYPOLOGY: Office / Residential
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 2020
GFA: 8.140 sqm
CLIENT: Leos Gate GmbH & Co. KG – New work and -living
STATUS: In progress
Leo’s Gate is the fourth building block on the site of the former ice rink in Münster. It marks the entrance to the Science Quarter from Steinfurter Strasse. The mixed use with catering units on the ground floor, flexible Coworking Spaces and Coliving Modules on the upper floors is multifunctional.
Different wooden constructions are planned depending on use and requirements. Floor-to-ceiling timber trusses with light ribbed ceiling slabs are used in the cantilevered Coworking areas. The 45 residential units are delivered as completely prefabricated and furnished wooden modules and are stacked over four floors.
All facade elements are designed in a uniform shade of red, which blends in with the entire ensemble of the historical Leonardo campus and the new brick buildings in the area.
