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
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Christian richters, Büros

WLV Office Building

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 1995

COMPETITION: 1992, First prize

GFA: 7.200 sqm

CLIENT: WLV

AWARDS: German Architecture Award 1996, commendation

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

The reflective surface of the ‘dark green glazed’ brick animates a monolithic self-focusing form. An ambiguous surface alternating between the brilliance of the sky or the depths of black shadow. Mass is also the subject, a single building block in the urban fabric. A block further animated by the vectorial trajectory of the adjacent railway which instigates a façade curve and lean. A relatively simple slippage whose justification lies not in its formal but its tectonic resolution. Each brick course slips out one cm from the one supporting it. For the train traveller the WLV building is an event of a few seconds, its deflection perhaps only the effect of speed, its roof perhaps only temporarily hovering.

The three floors and 7.000 sqm of offices house a branch of local government that deals with the administration of psychiatric services. Shops on the ground and rooftop canteen-restaurant complete the sandwich. A specified planning module of 1.625 m results in a deep precast concrete fin on each axis, visible structure in unpainted concrete defining a window zone for heating, cable canals and glare blinds. From inside window frames disappear behind fins, to the south sun screens extend the internal ceiling line beyond the window. Systematised cellular offices are animated by contextual deflexions in the overall plan form, resulting in serpentine office strips, floating service islands, the ‘elastic plan’. Not high but low-tech is here and in the entire building thematizing, the simple, the well made, the long lasting.

Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Christian richters, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Christian richters, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, plan, ground floor, grundriss, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Christian richters, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Christian richters, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Christian richters, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Christian richters, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Christian richters, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Christian richters, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, zeichnung, Isometrie, isometry, drawing, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, Modell, model, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, zeichnung, Isometrie, isometry, drawing, sketch, Skizze, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, zeichnung, lageplan, siteplan, site, drawing, Büros
Warendorf Strasse, WLV offices, Münster, muenster, zeichnung, sketch, Skizze, Aquarell, Peter Wilson, Büros
technology centre_technologiehof_munster_christian richters

Technology Centre

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office / Laboratory / Conference

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Munster

YEAR: 1993

GFA: 16.000 sqm

CLIENT: Technologiehof Münster GmbH

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

The university zone of Mnster (like most of what we still call cities) is a mixture of isolated large buildings, open space and fragments of small scale, residential patterns. Rather than attempting to stitch together buildings in a coherent or unifying pattern, the Technologiehof accepts its autonomy and in doing so legitimizes the voids between as today’s characteristic urban condition.

The three discrete objects of the Technologiehof also mark an end to the city. To the north are green fields, to the south (bridge side) is the semi-urban campus. Within their precise form the façades are a consequence of this double direction.

Three precise rectilinear forms (unambiguous autonomous objects) are a consequence of the construction system: standardised precast columns, beams, wall and floor panels. The expression of technology is limited to the shiny aluminium skin.

Small, highly serviced, commercially rented laboratories (bio-sensoric research, environment and telecommunications research) flank a middle building with offices and conference facilities. Triangular tapering winter gardens at third floor level provide relief from the absorbing rigour of the working spaces.

technology centre_technologiehof_munster_christian richters
One of three rectilinear forms
technology centre_technologiehof_munster_christian richters
technology centre_technologiehof_munster_christian richters
The bridge
technology centre_technologiehof_munster_plan
Axonometric perspective
technology centre_technologiehof_munster_plan
Figure ground plan
technology centre_technologiehof_munster_plan
Ground floor plan
technology centre_technologiehof_munster_plan
First floor plan and South elevation
zkw wvk office_munster_christian richters

ZWK / WVK Office

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2000

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

A building that inserts a new square in the plan of the City, in a zone of transition from monumental 19thcentury administration buildings to smaller scale row houses with no major urban frontage, but bisected by a public right of way (commuter bicycle route). The “U”-form of the new building frames a ramped square, scales change in stages. The bicycles punch a grand portal through the office facade. Cellular offices open through a glass facade supported on a frame of laminated timber giving the conventional offices a lightness and transparence.

The principle which animates this convention bound site and program is that of carefully detailing and choreographing everyday necessities – entrance, office layout, meeting rooms. The whole adds up to a clear and precise urban insert, sculptural in its form both object and container.

zkw wvk office_munster_christian richters
zkw wvk office_munster_christian richters
zkw wvk office_munster_plan
Siteplan
zkw wvk office_munster_plan
Floor plan
zkw wvk office_munster_sketch_peter wilson
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