Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior

Blackburn House

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential

COUNTRY: UK

CITY: London

YEAR: 1987

PHOTOS © BOLLES+WILSON

No grand statement rather a series of practical opportunities. First the restructuring of the row of rundown Mews Houses into a new white box. A large window breaks through the white façade, the view is not good, the glass is opaque, blinded.

Ground floor office, a two floor apartment housing, a collection; Barry Flanagan (hare), Scott Burton (chair), Andy Warhol (portrait), Bruce McLean (table), Ron Arad (table), Jasper Morrison (sofa). Interior details are added to this list – supporting column and cantilevered balcony in steel, a vitrine, a floating boat – seat – handrail – individual narratives in a limited range of materials.

The upper floor with its 14 m skylight-wall functions as gallery, the lower lobby as chair hall. Sitting on the central barge seat the visitor has reached the vortex of the composition hovering like the house itself, not quite part of London.

Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior_Stair_Treppe
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior
Blackburn House_London_Residential_Wohnhaus_Photo_Foto_Interior

NEW HIT – Hotel International Tirana

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Hotel

COUNTRY: Albania

CITY: Tirana

YEAR: 2016-2025

ARCHITECTS: BOLLES+WILSON with Atelier 4

PHOTOS: © BOLLES+WILSON

New HIT was the working title of this project for the Albanian investor Mr. Ram Geci – it has now been franchised to the INTERCONTINENTAL hotel chain).

THINNESS – The gold New HIT façade terminates Tirana’s central axis, the result of a 1930s regulatory plan by Geheraldo Bossio and Fernando Poggi (Italian occupation).
THINNESS – The hotel is adjacent to the grand and elegant 2017 Scanderbeg Square by the Belgians 51N4E.
THINNESS – in the east and west elevations the hotel is read as two thin slabs - black to the north and gold to the south.
LAYERING – the black slab backs the gold façade, in front of this stands the white Hotel Tirana (the tallest building in Albania under Communism). To the left is the Albanian National Museum (a gift from Russia). To the right even MDRDV’s Skanderbeg (national hero) glances sideways wishing he also could be golden.
EVOLUTION - First sketches engendering the 2 slab sandwich concept.
EVOLUTION - Inverted `V´ windows originally occupied the south façade.
EVOLUTION - These at night became a woven golden curtain.
EVOLUTION - Inverted `V´ windows with projecting cowl (sun screening)
EVOLUTION - Illuminated gold curtain - with double windows.
EVOLUTION - Windows taking in two hotel rooms are marshalled into rectangular cassettes.
EVOLUTION - WINDOW DECLINATION - Like Lucretian Clinamen the windows are in flux, swerving out of alignment with the gold façade which each illuminates with its concealed LED strip (left hand window surround).
EVOLUTION - Window details - the central coloured panels screen ventilation slits to two hotel rooms.
EVOLUTION - Ordered windows -Tirana jumble - grand mountains.
LOST IN TRANSLATION - An eight year evolution from initial concept to grand physical object is an act of translation. It is thus inevitable that certain generative ideas are lost in translation.
LOST IN TRANSLATION - The Hotel Lobby Sketch was instrumental in getting the Prime Minister’s approval, it survived much of the journey but not the appearance of an Italian interior designer who arrived when the 5 Star hotel was franchised to the INTERCONTINENTAL chain.
LOST IN TRANSLATION - This was also the fate of the BOLLES+WILSON conference hall, also the initial room gestalt.
Another Lost in Translation victim was rooftop terraces - too windy 100m up.
LOST IN TRANSLATION - The late arrival of a Casino almost engendered a gold and red staircase balanced over car park ramps.
LOST IN TRANSLATION - As Louis Kahn once noted – the drama of a building’s making is lost when complete. For the New HIT tower construction (as always) first went dramatically downwards.
When finished a tower becomes a family member in an emerging URBAN COLLAGE. From left to right – BOLLES +WILSON, MDRDV, CEBRA, Alejandro Aravena (Elemental), BOLLES+WILSON’s under construction Bazaar Gate (in the backseat).
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
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Siteplan
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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
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.

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

Münster City Library

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 1993
COMPETITION: 1987, First Prize
CLIENT: City of Münster
COLLABORATOR: Harms & Partner (in realization phase)
AWARDS: Mies van der Rohe Award 1995, Nomination
German Architecture Award 1995, Commendation
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters, Julia Cawley (update 2010)

The Münster Library was BOLLES+WILSON’s first major public commission. After more than ten years it remains near the top of Germany’s ‘library-user-ranking-list’. A verification not only of functionality but also of the attention to detail, to spatial multiplicity and to the ambience and atmosphere within.

The complexities of the overall building form are derived from internal organisation and from a careful re-constitution of the fragmented context. A new pedestrian street on the axis of the nearby Lamberti Church divides the not inconsiderable mass of the Library. This fissure in the library volume is closed with folded screens (copper outside, acoustically absorbing perforated wood panels within).

A transparent entrance zone (café, newspaper salon) leads via an information supermarket to the main information desk on the connecting bridge. This in turn is adjacent to book stacks in the ship-like outer volume. The atmosphere is quiet, studious. Books line the outer curved wall, a dramatic stair leads down through a 22 m void to the basement media library, which connects in turn to the courtyard facing children’s library and back up to the entrance zone. Up to four thousand users enter the Münster Library on one day.

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Münster City Library – Update 2010
With a newly painted facade and new automatic check out and 24-hour return automat the Münster City Library in its 18th year remains near the top of the German public library ranking list.

Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, main entrance, Eingang
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, Christian Richters
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Julia Cawley, Interior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Christian Richters, Interior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Julia Cawley, Exterior, Buchrückgabe
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Interior, meeting room
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Christian Richters, Interior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Christian Richters, Interior
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, plan, Grundriss, 1. Etage, 1st floor
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, plan, Grundriss, 1. Etage, 1st floor
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, elevation, Ansicht, Fassade
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, section, schnitt
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, section, schnitt
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Exterior, isometry, isometrie
Stadtbücherei Münster, City Library, Isometrie, Exterior