bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_entrance

BP Lingen Administrative and Service Centre

Detail

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.

bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_lantern at night
'Lighthouse' at nighttime
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing
Façade with vertical sun louvers
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_facade detail
Façade detail
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_foyer
Foyer
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_foyer
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_hall with pneumatic roof
Atrium as the communicative heart of the building
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_hall with pneumatic roof
Pneumatic roof
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_hall with pneumatic roof
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_hall with pneumatic roof
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_office area
Office area
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_office area
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_office area
bp lingen administrative and service centre_lingen_roman mensing_office area
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model

BEIC

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural

COUNTRY: Italy

CITY: Milan

YEAR: (final design 2005)

COMPETITION: Invited Competition 2001, 1st Prize

GFA: 83.000 sqm

CLIENT: Fondazione BEIC, Milan

COLABORATORS: ati BEIC Milan: BOLLES+WILSON with ahw Ingenieure and alterstudio partners

PHOTOS MODEL: © Tomasz Sameck

MEDIA: 900.000 books, 150.000 audio-visual media, 3.500 user seats

The BEIC is in the state of becoming. It already exists on the agendas of countless participating planners, librarians, expertly shepherding clients, politicians, Milanese and other future users. As the planning steadily marches through preliminare, definitivo and on to esecutivo phases, expectations multiply (optimism is contagious) and the physical character, the individuality, the unique spaces of this exceptional endeavour come ever more sharply into focus. Despite the grand scale the building conjures a certain intimacy for individual users. It invents an entirely new constellation of the ‘house of knowledge’, where digital ephemerality cohabits with our old friend the book. The emerging BEIC remains true to the concept that won the architectural competition. Within this architectural and organizational framework countless refinements have been invented (terracotta facade, the bar-chart-acoustically-absorptive interior panelling) and significant opportunities like the earthquake resistant wave-like ceilings have been identified and integrated.

Urban Concept – The site is linear, as is the remembered trajectory of the Stazione Vittoria. The BEIC’s two doors address the east (the centre of Milan, Viale Umbria) and the west (new subway exit, Viale Mugello and the new sport and recreation landscape beyond). An east-west pedestrian walkway runs not parallel to but through the BEIC – urban networking.

A 36 m high Urban Landmark – A vessel of culture and information, invitation, frame and enabler to multiple passages and trajectories. Entrance ramps fold surrounding pavements up to the +5.00 piazza, entrances and lobby. Reading arms extend out from the main volume.

Windows like that to the main elevator lobby on axis with the Via Vertoiba, tie through framed views the interior back into the urban context.

The terraces of the various departments frame a communicative forum, a landscape of knowledge. Reading salons nestled into the sidewalls of the frame or balcony edge desks offer a wide variety of working atmospheres. Warm acoustically absorptive materials provide the required library ambience.

Program – A 5 m high socle contains all functions outside the controlled library Conference, Teaching Centre, Media Forum, Childrens Library with garden, carparks. The walkthrough Lobby gives a visual orientation to all departments galleried above. It flows into the entrance, general information and reference zones. Reading Rooms are on the north side, Users Own in the east arm, connecting to youth areas. Departments are on three upper balconies, with variable stores and connected via ramps in the reading arms a flowing together. Workshops, offices and administration are in the 3 storey arm along the Via Monte Ortigara. 

BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Elevation_Ansicht
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Aerial view_Luftbild
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Siteplan_Lageplan
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Plan_Grundriss
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Plan_Grundriss
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Elevation_Ansicht
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague

Spuimarkt

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Shopping // Retail, Leisure, Cultural

COUNTRY: The Netherlands

CITY: The Hague

YEAR: 2008

Masterplan 1997

Design Commercial Block 2005-2007

GFA: 36.400 sqm

CLIENT: ING Vastgoed, The Hague; Pathé Theatres B.V.

COLLABORATOR: Bureau Bouwkunde (facilitating architect)

AWARDS: Shopping Centre of the Year NL 2009

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

The Spuimarkt is a permeable block, it hosts the life of the city (tides and eddies of shoppers), it leads Bioscoop and other leisure seekers dramatically upward, and perches them in grand foyers, outlook windows, privileged vantages. The Pathé cinema foyer is a Piranesian space, its stairs flow dramatically upward, they cross, they hover. Just arriving at one of the nine cinemas (2,270 seats) is a cinematic experience – along the way some of the best views in Den Haag.

A richly textured brick facade gives unity and dignity to the whole block; the tactility of the rotated and projecting bricks is comparable to a tweed jacket, its hand-made quality both abstract and traditional. Spuimarkt’s sculptured corporal autonomy is carefully dovetailed into the wider context, mediating between the Bijenkorf and the City Hall to form a trilogy of major urban statements. The building’s varying scales respond to the surrounding context, the grand Grote Marktstraat facade steps down behind to the more intimate street scale of Gedempte Gracht. The lower Pathé cinema entrance reflects the height of the traditional houses it faces.

The sinuous roof silhouette, moulded around the cinema within, is like a topographic landform; an anchoring that gives measure and scale to the complex Den Haag skyline.

Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, floor plan, grundriss
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, floor plan, grundriss
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, floor plan, grundriss
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, floor plan, grundriss
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, sketch, drawing
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, sketch, drawing
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
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