bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_main facade

BnL Bibliothèque nationale du Luxembourg

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural
COUNTRY: Luxemburg
CITY: Luxembourg (Kirchberg)
YEAR: 2019
COMPETITION: 2003, 1st prize
GFA: 38.200 m2
CLIENT: Le Gouvernement du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg / Ministère de la Mobilité et des Travaux publics
COLLABORATOR: cooperation with local office: WW+ architektur + management sàrl (tender + construction management)
AWARD: 2021 DAM Prize for Architecture in Germany, category Buildings Abroad (Shortlist)
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters
PHOTOS MODEL: © Tomasz Samek
PHOTOS CONSTRUCTION: © Administration des bâtiments publics / Bibliothèque nationale du Luxembourg + BOLLES+WILSON

The task of the Patrimonial and Universal Library is the housing and protection of Cultural and Intellectual Texts – a foundation stone of the intellectual community. For the BnL a compact, energy efficient building volume houses a wide range of functional entities.
A transparent imposing, but at the same time inviting, facade fronts onto the Avenue John F. Kennedy. Internal functions unfold sequentially from this entrance gesture; Foyer +, Café (with upper level conference + seminar rooms), next the Reading Room – a landscape of terraced workstations and bookshelves. The principle building block is located deep within the building, a central and compact archive over five levels. This secure core is encased by public spaces and forms a plateau on top of which the largest bookshelf area and reading-deck is found.
The principle facade material is large format red pre-cast concrete panels – a patchwork due to a variety of surface treatments (water/sand-jeting, acid washing). The architectural intention is homogeneity, a material unity of the overall building volume, with an undercurrent of surface articulation. The archive plateau is encased in a bastion-like wrapping of stone-filled Gabion cages. Planning prioritized energy efficiency; technical installations take second place in favour of an activating of the buildings thermal mass to engender a sustainable interior climate.

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View from Ave. John F. Kennedy
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_entrance
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_entrance
Intarsia on the entrance façade
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Entrance as a funnel
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South façade
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_facade detail
Façade detail and archive behind gabion wall
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Foyer
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Foyer with staircase
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Main reading hall
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_main reading room
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_main reading room
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_upper reading deck
Upper reading deck
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_upper reading deck
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_special reading room
Special reading room
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_seminar room
Seminar room
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Aerial view
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_site plan
Siteplan
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Ground floor
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_tomasz samek_model
Model
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Aerial view of the construction site
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bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_construction
city hall, korca new municipality, albania

City Hall Korça

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Public

COUNTRY: Albania

CITY: Korça

YEAR: 2019

PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, Olgert Maxhe, BOLLES+WILSON

1) The conversion of the communist library on Bulevard Shën Gjergji was a parallel project to the construction of the (BOLLES+WILSON) New Library facing the new Cathedral Square. – These are all pieces of the puzzle that adds up to the BOLLES+WILSON Masterplan for the centre of the city of Korça.

2) The re-design introduced a new balcony to synthesise a previously uncomfortable Junction of marble columns and the white box upper floor. The perforated balustrade facilitates victorious football teams or the mayor addressing his public.

3) The four large windows to the balcony received new sliding sun screens. We are here only a stone’s throw from the BOLLES+WILSON 2014 Red Bar in the Sky.

4) The communist library was on the site of a demolished church – the façade geometry of this absent building had already been embossed into the paving (rotated on its ground line) with the pedestrianizing of Boulevard Shën Gjergji (BOLLES+WILSON Masterplan stage 1). This embedded history is now to be read in lasered text in Albanian (black on white) or English (white on black) on the new entrance ramp wall (the axis of rotation for the reanimated church geometry).

5) The old library interior is emptied for a spacious ‘one stop shop’ (public information). Here existing tiles and the wide span coffered ceilings are thematized (colour + integrated air outlets), the existing theatrical stairs gets a pink backdrop with scattered windows. (6+7)

6) Here existing tiles and the wide span coffered ceilings are thematized (colour + integrated air outlets).

7) The existing theatrical stairs gets a pink backdrop with scattered windows.

8) Part of the entrance level floor was removed for a stair that leads down to the new council chamber.

9) White public information islands are divided from individual offices by a lightweight glass wall.

10) Dividing – the council chamber from the Lobby. A translucent screen of green wine bottles was inserted between existing structural beams.

11) The floor slab removed for the council chamber creates a grand salon for political debate. Councillors desks are white, the visitors balcony pink (12+13)

14) Wine bottles set in mortar give an underwater ambience to council chamber.

15) Their open necks function as acoustic absorbers.

16) Councillors’ benches focus on the mayor’s desk, this is backed by a wooden screen with the double eagle Albanian national symbol.

17) Our client, the mayor Sotiraq Filo

18) A high clearstory window lights from the side

19) Next door to the new city hall an existing building (nineteenth century eclecticism) has been carefully restored for the offices of the mayor and his staff. It connects directly to the council chamber via a submerged tunnel (steps above). (19)

20) Within the mayors building – no architectural interventions were needed. It only remained for BOLLES+WILSON to apply a radical polychromy. (20,21,22,23)

city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania, Peter Wilson, drawing sketch
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania
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city hall, korca new municipality, albania, sketch drawing, Peter Wilson
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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
leos gate_munster

Leo’s Gate Coworking und Coliving

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office / Residential

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2020

GFA: 8.140 m2

CLIENT: Leos Gate GmbH & Co. KG – New work and -living

STATUS: In progress

Leo’s Gate is the fourth building block on the site of the former ice rink in Münster. It marks the entrance to the Science Quarter from Steinfurter Strasse. The mixed use with catering units on the ground floor, flexible Coworking Spaces and Coliving Modules on the upper floors is multifunctional.

Different wooden constructions are planned depending on use and requirements. Floor-to-ceiling timber trusses with light ribbed ceiling slabs are used in the cantilevered Coworking areas. The 45 residential units are delivered as completely prefabricated and furnished wooden modules and are stacked over four floors.

All facade elements are designed in a uniform shade of red, which blends in with the entire ensemble of the historical Leonardo campus and the new brick buildings in the area.

leos gate_munster_street view
leos gate_munster_elevantin_ansicht
leos gate_munster_street view
leos gate_munster
leos gate_munster
leos gate_munster_interior
leos gate_munster_interior
leos gate_munster_facade_fassade
leos gate_munster_facade_fassade
leos gate_munster_plan_grundriss
leos gate_munster_section_schnitt

Hotel Urban Loft

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Hotel
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Cologne
YEAR: 2020
Competition: –
GFA: 10.000 m2
CLIENT: EHBB Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG
USER: Althoff Hotels
USE: Hotel with 213 rooms, restaurant, underground parking, 8 apartments
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, BOLLES+WILSON

Young creative digital natives arriving at Cologne’s Central Station need now only to duck around the corner to spend time in URBAN LOFT – a new brand by Althoff Hotels. BOLLES+WILSON’s responsibility was the form + language of the building – a textile like street façade (Eigelstein) of warm vertical brick. The former brewery site in one of Cologne’s most traditional neighbourhoods is squashed up against railway tracks. Sound proof windows gaze at the cathedral spires + into the posterior of the station – trains rush past, only 1m from the rear façade. Also at the rear (Am Salzmagazin) stacked apartments watch this urban opera. Following a planners invective a neighbourhood networking is achieved with a passage passing internal terraces + squeezing out in the atmospheric underpass.

hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Peter Wilson drawing, handzeichnung
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing
hotel urban loft, Koeln, Köln, Eigelstein, Roman Mensing