dub house_haus dub_munster

Dub House

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Munster

YEAR: 1993

PHOTOS: © BOLLES+WILSON

The principal element, a Blue Glazed Brick Wall corrects a disastrous alteration and also breaks the tyranny of uniform ceiling height.

The second added element, a Zinc Clad Studio Box stands adjacent the Blue Wall. The two set up an external and internal play – geometric volumes – the abstract language of the plan respected and developed.

A very modest commission, careful details with the potential of enhancing the everyday lives of their users.

dub house_haus dub_munster
dub house_haus dub_munster
dub house_haus dub_munster
dub house_haus dub_munster
dub house_haus dub_munster

vZvdG House

Detail

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”.

vzvdg house, Enschede, photo, foto, christian Richters
vzvdg house, Enschede
vzvdg house, Enschede
vzvdg house, Enschede
vzvdg house, Enschede
vzvdg house, Enschede, Postkarte, postcard
vzvdg house, Enschede, plan, Grundriss, ground floor
vzvdg house, Enschede, plan, floorpan
vzvdg house, Enschede, plan, elevation, Ansicht
vzvdg house, Enschede, elevation, Ansicht
vzvdg house, Enschede, plan, elevation, Ansicht
vzvdg house, Enschede, drawing, sketch, Skizze, Peter Wilson
vzvdg house, Enschede
vzvdg house, Enschede, drawing, sketch, Skizze, Peter Wilson
Prison Library_JVA Buecherei_Munster_Collage

Prison Library

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Library

COUNTRY: German

CITY: Munster

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
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, foto, christian richters

Dieze Training Centre

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Educational

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Castrop-Rauxel

YEAR: 1996

COMPETITION: 1994, First Prize

GFA: 3.000 sqm

CLIENT: GEWO, Castrop-Rauxel

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

A branch of the Open University Hagen and a Women’s Retraining Centre – shared conference and seminar facilities. Anchor box plus geometric extensions. The alien conference element cantilevers acrobatically. Strict plan geometries evolve a three dimensional language of interlocking materials.

Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, foto, christian richters
Diese training centre, Castrop Rauxel, foto, christian richters
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, foto, christian richters
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, plan, schwarzplan, lageplan
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, plan, ground floor, Erdgeschoss
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, plan, ground floor, obergeschoss
Dieze training centre, Castrop Rauxel, sketch, Peter Wilson, drawing, Zeichnung, Skizze, perspecitv, Perspektive
U-boot, U boat hall, Hannover, yellow, Olaf Mahlstedt

U Boat Hall

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Retail
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Hannover
YEAR: 2012
CLIENT: RS Möbelhandelsgesellschaft mbH
PHOTOS: © Olaf Mahlstedt

LOCKED IN SERVITUDE THE DRAMA OF A BUILDING’S MAKING REMAINS HIDDEN: (Louis Kahn)

There is today an enormous potential in the re-scripting of grand industrial spaces, survivors from an epoch that had less trouble expressing itself and its mechanical or technical potency than our current mean and exploitative ‘global shopping-centre-culture’.

One thinks of São Paulo’s Fábrica da Pompéia by Lina Bo Bardi, London’s Tate Bankside, or the Zollverein Coal Mine in Essen, Germany.

This was our first reaction as our client drove his black Porsche into the rusting cathedral of Hannover’s ‘U-boat Hall’. Was it a panic reaction at the end of WW II to build a submarine production space so far from the North Sea? The structure of the hall had in fact been originally designed for a U-boat production site of a naval dockyard in Wilhelmshaven. As it turned out the enigmatically named ‘U-boat Hall’ was only finished in 1944 and was thus not used for armament production.

Now sliced like salami the ‘Industrial Heritage Structure’ is to house various commercial outlets – a mega Bicycle Emporium where racing bikes can be tested in the shop or this landscape of coloured furniture.

This is in fact two shops; RS (wholesome wood) and Yellow (sub-designer). BOLLES+WILSON have already realized their flagship store in Münster and the HQ Building, a rooftop lake above a ‘big box’ two-floor warehouse/distribution centre.

For the ‘U-boat Hall’ the rent was based on the square meters of the hall’s floor. The architectural question was how to maximize this floor area with a selling landscape and a back of house warehouse for customers to pick up their new sofa / table / lamp.

The magnificent scale of rusting columns, elevated crane track and skylight box, resist the invasion of domestic equipment, relegating it to the status of ‘a carpet of coloured pixels’ spread across the selling decks.

U-boot, U boat hall, Hannover, yellow, Olaf Mahlstedt
U-boot, U boat hall, Hannover, yellow, Olaf Mahlstedt
U-boot, U boat hall, Hannover, yellow, modell
U-boot, U boat hall, Hannover, yellow, Olaf Mahlstedt
U-boot, U boat hall, Hannover, yellow, Olaf Mahlstedt
U-boot, U boat hall, Hannover, yellow, Olaf Mahlstedt
U-boot, U boat hall, Hannover, yellow, Olaf Mahlstedt