City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo

City Hall Willich

Detail

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.

City Hall Willich_willich_christian richters
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_christian richters
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_schematic site plan
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_section_plan_schnitt_grundriss
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_collage
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_south facade opening to the playground

Kita Frankfurt Bergen Enkheim

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Educational
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Frankfurt
YEAR: 2022
CLIENT: City of Frankfurt
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing

The latest BOLLES+WILSON kindergarten is now, after a protracted incubation open for its 60 mini-customers.

It is beside a fire station and behind suburban villas in Frankfurt’s Bergen Enkheim district.

The `coat of many colours´ façade is wood, sustainable, a signal for the building’s `passive house´ status. Colourful sun awnings animate the south façade where the six group rooms open to the playground or to the first floor balcony (where stairs connect down to playground). Sliding white sunscreens on the East and West façades also give night time security for open windows.
The flat roof is planted for rainwater retention and for insect habitat.
The compact volume and upper level multi purpose room are consequence of the limited site and a ground level change 2,20m.
The interior circulation gallery is animated by an optimistic green/yellow wall with giant foot/hand prints. A thematicising of scale is endemic to a building whose customers are only 90 centimeters tall.

kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_entrance
Entrance
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_wooden facade
Wooden façade with sliding sunscreens
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_wooden facade
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_wooden facade
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_wooden facade
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_wooden facade
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_south facade with colourful sun awnings
South façade with colourful sun awnings
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_south facade
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_south facade
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_gallery
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_gallery
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_hallway with gallery
Hallway with gallery
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_hallway with gallery
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_hallway with gallery
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_north facade
North façade
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_view fom neighbourhood
View from the neighbourhood
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_siteplan
Siteplan
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_ground floor
Ground floor
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_roman mensing_first floor
First floor
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_section
Section
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_elevation
Closed sunshades
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_elevation
Open sunshades
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters

Cinnamon Tower

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Hamburg
YEAR: 2015
COMPETITION: 2006, 1st prize
GFA: 4.250 sqm
CLIENT: Gross & Partner
AWARDS: Deutscher Architektur Preis 2017 (commendation) for Harbour Masters Building Ensemble, BDA Hamburg Architecture Award 2016 (1st prize), German Facade Award for rear-ventilated facades 2015 (commendation)
NOMINATIONS: Mies van der Rohe Award 2017, Polis Award 2017 for Harbour Masters Building Ensemble
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters (tower) | Rainer Mader (pavilion)

The Cinnamon tower was conceived as freestanding campanile – a pin on a piazza was the concept behind the premiated competition design by BOLLES+WILSON for the existing 19th century Harbour Masters Building.

A tower was not anticipated in the competition programme, but the jury agreed that a tower anchors the public functions around the only remaining historical building to survive between the megablocks of the ‘Overseas Quarter’ master plan. The historic building will also be more autonomous.

Slenderness is essential for a campanile. Over the course of its 8-year gestation this was respected – even while its function mutated from stacked restaurants to housing. The 13 x 16 m floor plan tapers towards the top. With a height of 56 meters the tower is 4-times higher than it is wide.

How can such a thin chap be efficient?
The efficient answer is duplex apartments. Originally the concept foresaw seven apartments, each on 2 floors, a panoramic living deck on the upper level and bedrooms with punched windows below. Precise market analysis led to a variation of this formula: one triplex apartment at the top and some 1-floor apartments at lower levels. Built were ten apartments, four with 130 sqm, five with 185 sqm and one with 300 sqm. The tower has a gross floor area of 4.300 sqm and a volume of 16.000 cubic metres. At the ground level, the piazza level is a commercial area of around 300 sqm.

Strict high-rise regulations demanded an escape route from every floor via secured escape stair. The possibility to clean every window from the inside was also a criterion to be met. The spectacular view of the New Elbphilharmonie should not be blurred by dirty windows. Room-high windows on three sides of the living room also allow the tracking of incoming cruise ships.

Facade panels of anodized aluminium sheets in different gradations of dark red correspond to the patchwork of BOLLES+WILSON’s pavilion from 2008. This was the first realized component of the Harbour Masters ensemble. In sunlight these aluminium panels take on colourful nuances while on cloudy days they assume a darker, more serious Paul-Klee like appearance. This is a building that changes its character according to the incidence of light, a new figure on Hamburg’s skyline.

Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
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
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters

Luxor Theatre

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural
COUNTRY: Netherlands
CITY: Rotterdam, Kop van Zuid
YEAR: 2001
COMPETITION: Competition 1996, 1st Prize
GFA: 24.000 sqm
CLIENT: City of Rotterdam
COLLABORATOR: Bureau Bouwkunde (local support office)
AWARD: Mies van der Rohe Award 2001 (Shortlist)
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters, © L5, © BOLLES+WILSON

The New Luxor Theatre faces both the Maas River and Rijn Harbour – A multiple orientation, a single wrapping facade, a 360° building. An internalised ramp allows three 18 m long trucks to park directly besides the first floor stage. The ramp roof provides an architectural promenade in the foyer. The Luxor auditorium seats 1500, a giant scaled musical instrument, a surprisingly ‘intimate room’. The Luxor facilitates with an appropriated spatial theatricality the well working of complex theatre logistics.

On the 11th of May 2011 BOLLES+WILSON’S Luxor Theatre in Rotterdam celebrated its tenth anniversary with a spectacular Gala show.
The evening also marked the retirement of Luxor director Rob Wiegman – the great Rob Wiegman without whom this building, this resounding and on-going cultural event would not have happened. Tributes abounded, speeches – emotional Actors, Performers, Politicians, Rotterdamers – Architects.

Luxor theatre_rotterdam_axonometric
Axonometric section
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_3d
Aerial perspective
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Main façade
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Back façade
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Waterfront façade
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_aerial view
Aerial view
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_collage
Collage
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Interior
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Auditorium
Luxor theatre_rotterdam
Auditorium detail
Luxor theatre_rotterdam
Anniversary Gala
Luxor theatre_rotterdam
May 2011
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Foyer
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_plan
First floor
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_plan
Second floor
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_section
Section
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_section
Section
Luxor theatre_rotterdam_christian richters
Street view at night