Change Factory

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Competition / Office

COUNTRY: German

CITY: Eschweiler

YEAR: 2023

COMPETITION: Closed competition, 2nd Prize

COLLABORATOR: wbp Landschaftsarchitekten GmbH, Bochum

GFA: 11.880 sqm

CLIENT: Stadt Eschweiler

The Change Factory is Eschweiler’s new green, flexible, and flood-resilient innovation hub.
Instead of one large block, it’s a cluster of pavilions, halls, and workspaces connected by a leafy promenade linking the city center to Drieschplatz. Reclaimed bricks, repurposed windows, and lush façades show a commitment to circular construction, while active roofs host orchards, gardens, sports areas, and solar panels. A contoured green ring and rain-retention meadows provide natural flood protection, turning resilience into a design feature. Inside, adaptable modular buildings offer space for events, co-working, research, and community life. Combining low-tech solutions with smart energy systems, the Change Factory sets a new standard for sustainable urban development.

siteplan
roof areas productive + versatile
green flood ring
office, south view
ground floor
multifunctional hall, south view
standard floor
multifunctional hall, elevation north
multifunctional hall, elevation east
multifunctional hall, elevation west
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.

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'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
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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
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 2,20 m.
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
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First floor
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Section
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Closed sunshades
kita frankfurt bergen enkheim_frankfurt_elevation
Open sunshades
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster_christian richters

Loddenheide Water Purification Plant

Detail

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.

loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster_christian richters
Loddenheide Water Filtration Plant
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster_christian richters
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster_christian richters
H2O graphic on the fence mesh
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster_model
Model
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster_construction
Construction
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster
Design for the Dalai Lama Commemoration Stone
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster
The Dalai Lama Commemoration Stone
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster
Rainy day inauguration with Dalai Lama and the then mayoress
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster
loddenheide water purification plant_klaerwerk loddenheide_munster_christian richters
After twenty years the line of poplar trees have grown to divide Pumphouse from Circular Airation Basin, a formal seperation envisiged in the original compositional concept.
Prison Library_JVA Buecherei_Munster_Collage

Prison Library

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Library

COUNTRY: German

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2005

GFA: 80 sqm

CLIENT: Justizvollzugsanstalt Münster

AWARDS: Library of the Year Prize (German Library Association + the ZEIT Foundation)

PHOTOS: © BOLLES+WILSON

In 2007 the German Library Association together with the ZEIT Foundation awarded the ‚Library of the Year Prize‘ to the small but significant Prison Library in Münster (concept BOLLES+WILSON, implementation prisoners). The jury praised the exemplary, user-friendly and new interpretation of library functions and the atmosphere, an estranged relative of the nearby City Library (BOLLES+WILSON 1987–93). The single library room, jammed in the ‚armpit‘ between two Panopticon wings is simply furnished with shelves and counters in ‚optimistic‘ wood and friendly colours. Facing mirrors above and adjacent to the shelves multiply the original triangular room into a kaleidoscopic virtual hexagon. The prison in its entirety is optically reduced to a small central pavilion. Reading as transcendence or Borges‘ infinite ‚Library of Babel‘ are the unavoidable message. A leaf motive on ceiling and walls, like the new furniture, is the handwork of the prisoners themselves.

Prison Library_JVA Bücherei_Munster_Photo_Foto
Prison Library_JVA Bücherei_Munster_Photo_Foto
Prison Library_JVA Bücherei_Munster_Aerial View_Luftbild
Prison Library_JVA Bücherei_Munster_Idee
Prison Library_JVA Bücherei_Munster_Photo_Foto
Prison Library_JVA Bücherei_Munster_Plan_Grundriss
Prison Library_JVA Bücherei_Munster_Mirrors_Spiegel
Prison Library_JVA Bücherei_Munster_Leafs_Blaetter
Prison Library_JVA Bücherei_Munster_Sketch_Skizze