Modern Administration Potsdam-Mittelmark_Moderne Verwaltung Potsdam-Mittelmark_MoVe_Potsdam_Competition_Entrance

Modern Administration of Potsdam-Mittelmark

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Competition / Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Potsdam

YEAR: 2022

COMPETITION: Closed two-phase competition, 1st Prize

GFA: 23.000 sqm

CLIENT: District of Potsdam-Mittelmark

COLLABORATORS: Lindschulte+GGL Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH, Gerhardt Landschaft, Nees Ingenieure GmbH

The structural design for the administration building on the site of the historic Beelitz sanatorium was based on the winning design by B+W for the previous urban planning competition.

By following the course of the original footpaths, the new building blends gently into the park landscape. The restored circular hiking trail in the historic park serves as a “natural” construction limit and forms the connection to the listed building.

The south side of the new building develops parallel to the street and mediates between the alignments of the different existing buildings and the traffic routes.

Public and semi-public functions such as the entrance hall, conference center, advice center and canteen are lined up in the base. The three upper floors form the main building that is visible from afar and house the office and administration area. Towards the park, like the base, it leans against the circle of the historic circular path, while towards the street sides the volume is structured into individual sections by a wave shape.

Modern Administration Potsdam-Mittelmark_Moderne Verwaltung Potsdam-Mittelmark_MoVe_Potsdam_Competition_Park Facade
Modern Administration Potsdam-Mittelmark_Moderne Verwaltung Potsdam-Mittelmark_MoVe_Potsdam_Competition_Model
Modern Administration Potsdam-Mittelmark_Moderne Verwaltung Potsdam-Mittelmark_MoVe_Potsdam_Competition_Eingang_Entrance
Modern Administration Potsdam-Mittelmark_Moderne Verwaltung Potsdam-Mittelmark_MoVe_Potsdam_Competition_Model
Modern Administration Potsdam-Mittelmark_Moderne Verwaltung Potsdam-Mittelmark_MoVe_Potsdam_Competition_Siteplan_Lageplan
Modern Administration Potsdam-Mittelmark_Moderne Verwaltung Potsdam-Mittelmark_MoVe_Potsdam_Competition_Elevation_Ansicht
Modern Administration Potsdam-Mittelmark_Moderne Verwaltung Potsdam-Mittelmark_MoVe_Potsdam_Competition_Plan_Grundriss
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca, sketch, watercolour, Peter Wilson

Ligor Rembeci

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential

COUNTRY: Albania

CITY: Korça

YEAR: 2021

CLIENT: Bregu Group

PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing

The original BOLLES+WILSON 2016 Masterplan for the center of Korça identified the Ligor Rembeci Quarter as a zone for careful insertion of new buildings in symbiosis with existing stone villas – this strategy – activating a block interior accessed by a network of passages – is now emerging with the recently completed Serenity Villas.

Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Masterplan concept a weaving together of new acupuncture insertions with historic stone villas
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Emerging Ligor Rembeci Quarter – Centre: BOLLES+WILSON serenity villas – Background: other BOLLES+WILSON Korça projects
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Sketch plan of networked passages with shops + cafes
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Passages in the block interior
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Individual buildings close packed to give a sergio like urban texture
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Naples Yellow Hotel passage leads through to the masterplan defined Cathedral Square
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Late addition – the Naples Yellow Hotel stands in the garden of an existing villa
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Serenity villas with insemination sun canopies
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca, sketch
Insemination sun canopy
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca
Serenity villas nestle behind newly restored Greek Embassy – Left: Boulevard Shen Gjergji, now traffic free
Ligor rembeci, Albania, Korca, sketch, watercolour, Peter Wilson
The Ligor Rembeci neighbourhood fronts on to the Cathedral Square
Mittehafen_Munster_Aerzteversorgung_Competition

Mittelhafen

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Competition / Office

COUNTRY: German

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2020

COMPETITION: Close competition, 3rd Prize

GFA: 12.740 sqm

CLIENT: Ärzteversorgung Westfalen-Lippe

Both the property side facing the city port and the street side to “Am Mittelhafen” require representative façades. Therefor a building in the north-south axis is required, which fills the property over the entire length. The two narrow views speak a suitably dignified language – to the waterfront through an invigorating silhouette that adds a building with personality to the row of existing office buildings. The opposite side facing the street is emphasized by an expressive façade – in contrast to the buildings in the immediate vicinity, which do not have such a concise address. This gives the quarter a much needed “urban flair”.

Mittehafen_Munster_Aerzteversorgung_Competition_Elevation_Ansicht
Mittehafen_Munster_Aerzteversorgung_Competition
Mittehafen_Munster_Aerzteversorgung_Competition_Elevation_Ansicht
Mittehafen_Munster_Aerzteversorgung_Competition_Plan_Grundriss
Mittehafen_Munster_Aerzteversorgung_Competition_Plan_Grundriss
Mittehafen_Munster_Aerzteversorgung_Competition_Section_Schnitt
Mittehafen_Munster_Aerzteversorgung_Competition
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson

Napoli Bagnoli

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Competition / Area development / Masterplan

COUNTRY: Italy

CITY: Naples

YEAR: 2020

COMPETITION: Closed competition

COLLABORATORS: OTTAVIANI ASSOCIATI, GREENCURE landscape & healing gardens, Gianluca Peluffo&Partners Architettura srl, Nicola Gallinaro

The proposal is based on two complementary strategic choices: the interpretation of the park as a green flow, made up of a great variety of landscapes within which there are clearings that welcome the various episodes of industrial archeology, and the redesign of the seafront in continuity up to the island of Nisida, making it possible to expand the space for the beach and the Porto Turistico.

Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Collage
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Zip Line
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilsoni
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson
Napoli Bagnoli_Naples_Neapel_Masterplan_Gebietsentwicklung_Area development_Drawing_Peter Wilson
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni

Studios Frobenstraße 1

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Berlin-Schöneberg
YEAR: 2020
GFA: 2.300 m2
CLIENT: Frobenstraße 1 GbR
AWARDS: BDA Preis – nominated
PHOTOS: © Aya Schamoni
INTERIOR APARTMENT 9: studio f1 (Jack Wilson, Chris Geseke)

Finished in late 2020 Frobenstraße 1 offers for renting 11 variously sized apartments and 2 commercial units in an area of fashionable shops and galleries (Potsdamer Straße), street prostitution, social housing and huge investor driven developments of owner occupied apartments.

Frobenstraße 1 is a chorus member. It is not a Primadonna that steps out to front stage. The choreography of urban choruses is the Großstadt-DNA of Berlin, Paris or Barcelona. It defines the street line and the eaves line. In Frobenstraße 1 the upper facade limit is articulated with a recessed shadow line, a modest but significant detail.

The well behaved chorus anticipates a fictive future block-perimeter conclusion to the south, where there is now a Kindergarten with luxurious trees. Here the pink side wall (fire wall) presents itself for the kids with its giant footprint graphic.

Unlike the Bel étage of a Paris House the first floor here has the standard 3,10m room height, but its special relation to the street is prescribed by the delicate and continuous railing.

The window composition to the street describes the internal layout where three apartments break out of the standard, but generous room height to 4,80m and 6,50m. The grey facade has therefore aspirations to be read as a palazzo, with the projecting penthouse window playing the classic attica.

The garden facade is more domestic, balconies meandering out for afternoon sun and individual planting.

For the interior communal stair and lift black and white tiles dignify homecoming.

Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni, Giant footprint
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni, window, fenster
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni, interior
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni, interior, stairs, treppe
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni, interior, entrance, eingang
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni, interior, eingang, hall, entrance
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni, interior, Aufzug, elevator
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, Aya Schamoni, interior
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, plan, Lageplan
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, plan, Grundriss, groundloor, erdgeschoss
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, plan, Grundriss, floor plan
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, plan, Grundriss, floor plan
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, plan, section
Berlin Studios Frobenstrasse, Berlin, plan, section
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
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.

bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_entrance
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
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_entrance
Entrance as a funnel
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_south facade
South façade
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_facade detail
Façade detail and archive behind gabion wall
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Foyer
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_staircase
Foyer with staircase
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_reading landscape
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
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_aerial view
Aerial view
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_site plan
Siteplan
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_christian richters_ground floor
Ground floor
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_tomasz samek_model
Model
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Aerial view of the construction site
bibliotheque nationale du luxembourg_bnl_luxemburg_construction
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
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion

Shkodra Football Stadium

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Sport

COUNTRY: Albania

CITY: Shkodra

YEAR: 2017

PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, BOLLES+WILSON

The 2017 football stadium in the northern Albanian city of Shkodra was a fast-track project – Albania had to host the ritual skirmish with Serbia. To marshal Riotous Serbian fans corral-like platforms were built – each restrains 500 fans within the heavy steel perimeter rail. These raked platforms were as naked concrete an illustration of Louis Kahn’s statement (that a buildings sculptural essence is only visible while under construction or as a ruin). The colours of the Shkodra team are a manly pink and light blue. Finished the pink reverse side of the stadium corrals offer a dramatic backdrop for informal urban life. The new main stadium with V.I.P. deck + press box is lit from up lights reflecting on white circles (see sketch). Existing stadiums were upgraded with a wind animated screen.

Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion, construction, konstruktion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Shkodra, albania, albanien, football stadium, fußball stadion
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien

Teatri Andon Z Cajupi

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural

COUNTRY: Albania

CITY: Korça

YEAR: 2017

CLIENT: Municipality of Korça

PHOTOS: © BOLLES+WILSON, Daniel Dervishi, Roman Mensing

 

Re-scripting Korca‘s theatre:

The theatre in Korca was initially a present from Moscow prior to Albanian Communism‘s falling out with Post-Stalinist Russia.

Its Soviet classicism was then stripped back to a sort of Balkan Art déco (Illus 1).

The large triangular Theatre Square, big enough for nationalistic parades, became a subject for re-formatting when in 2009 BOLLES+WILSON won the international planning competition for the historic centre of Korca. The main axis of the now almost fully implemented masterplan is the Bulevard Shën Gjergji (St. George), the new hub of the city, a pedestrian promenade (Illus 2) culminating in the Theater Square (now anchored by BOLLES+WILSON‘s 2014 Red Bar in the Sky – which focuses the Theatre Square, the concluding phase of the B+W 2009 masterplan. The campanile which functions as a lookout tower for Korcians to appreciate the delicate grain of their historic city is located at the end of the central pedestrian boulevard (landscaping by B+W).

The next intervention was the theatre itself – quite literally given a new face (or lots of new faces). Seating capacity was increased by converting a two-tier auditorium to a large raked plane (Illus 3 +4).

The design method as with all BOLLES+WILSON Albanian projects involved Peter Wilson‘s hand drawn concept (Illus 5) interpreted by a local facilitating office (in this case DEA Studio). A methodology that baits ‘lost in translation‘ misinterpretations (as was the case here when the contractors were found scratching their heads at a book of ‘Albanian Bling Renderings‘ but no details, a problem solved by Peter Wilson further sketching, this time 1:1 details direct on the wall).

The masks of comic and tragedy belong to theatre iconography, here they are joined by 140 smaller masks – the audience, hand crafted in terracotta by the local potter Vasillaq Kolevica (Illus 6+8). The 80 cm high individualized masks each occupy a grid square of the Art déco facade. The black tragic mask is convex, the white comic mask is concave – the construction principles for these were again hand sketched.

The comic mask is on a side annex (that now houses an internal grand stair), a cube clad in black basalt (Illus 10+13). The perimeter of the mask is defined by a stainless steel profile inside of which the white plaster indentation is recessed. The ominous black silhouette of the tragic mask is built up of polystyrene insulation blocks (Illus 11+12+14). Edge radii were sketched but ultimately a 1:1 demonstration with a bread knife was necessary to communicate the idea to he builders. The surface here is again plastered to resemble a giant Japanese ‘ No-theatre‘ mask (Illus 14+15).

Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien
1
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien, red bar in the sky
2
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien
3
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien
4
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien, drwawing
5
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien, masks
6
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien, mask, peter wilson
7
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien, masks
8 The curtain goes up on the masks
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien, drawing
9
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien
10
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien
11
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien
12
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien
13
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien
14 Foreground: BOLLES+WILSON's Korça paving format
Korca, Teatri Andon Z. Çajupi, theatre, albania, albanien
15 Theatre next to Red Bar's base and in its shadow

Moebelum

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Retail

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Munich

YEAR: 2016

GFA EXISTING: 4.047 sqm

GFA NEW: 755 sqm

CLIENT: Möbelum Zentral GmbH

PHOTOS: © Florian Holzherr

Möbelum furniture outlet – a new facade for an existing industrial building/furniture showroom.

The stacked cassettes of the display facade integrate existing office windows.

Möbelum, München, Munich, Foto, Florian Holzherr
Möbelum, München, Munich, Foto, Florian Holzherr
Möbelum, München, Munich, Foto, Florian Holzherr
Möbelum, München, Munich, Foto, Florian Holzherr
Möbelum, München, Munich, Drawing, Sketch, Peter Wilson, Zeichnung
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing

Icon Museum

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural
COUNTRY: Albania
CITY: Korça
YEAR: 2016
CLIENT: Municipality of Korçë
COLLABORATOR: Dea Studio
AWARDS: Nomination, The Plan Award 2017
Nomination, Aga Khan Award for Architecture
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing

The building for the Korça Icon Museum was originally a structure of columns and floor slabs (Maison Domino) abandoned when communism collapsed in Albania.

The Albanian office DEA Studio were comissioned to design facades and BOLLES+WILSON were then asked by the municipality of Korça to design and develop an interior exhibition design and sequence for the 300 Orthodox icons.

The heavy walls on the exterior with their small windows were intended to give an appropriate medieval reading.

The small windows from the inside did give an appropriate mysterious atmosphere but in terms of viewing Icons they were too bright and needed some interior masking to avoid too much contrast between a small area of bright outside light and the surrounding.

As the museum neared completion the albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama visited, and thinking the facades were too prison-like asked BOLLES+WILSON to extend their interior language to the entrance facade. Black painted plaster was added framing and respecting the DEA window composition. BOLLES+WILSON also added ‚Barnett Newman colours‘ to the existing communist fountain.

EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION

The given three levels subdivide well into Basement Archive with ground level laboritories/administration. The Exhibition spaces belong on the entrance level and the 1st floor – here the interior concept proposes a specific circulation route for visitors and an absolute division between public spaces and ‘back-of- house’. This is necessary for reasons of security (the public must not have the possibility to enter rooms where Icons are being worked on).

The floor between entrance level and 1st floor has been removed over the entire left hand exhibition room. This allows a new stair facilitating a simple and spectacular visitors circulation route. The new stair gives panorama views of a 9.5 metre high golden wall – for this wall the Petersburg hanging system was chosen – a close packing of Icons, a tapestry of images covering the entire wall, impressing visitors with the size of the Korça collection.

A SEQUENCE OF ROOMS

The interior concept develops zones of strong individual character defined by colour: gold on the left, black matt and gloss black in the central ‘Black Labyrinth‘ zone and Red for the Iconastas (Altar screen) on the right. The Sequential Rooms are carefully choreographed for the most dramatic effect:

(a) Entrance Lobby – an abstract collage of shelves for merchandising, postcards, posters, local handcrafts and even small Icons painted by Korça artists (a new local industry) are displayed and sold.

(b) The Gold Room – a two floor high gold screen (one that also wraps the sidewalls and

tames natural light from slit windows). The screen is packed with Icons. Visitors promenade freely and then step up to the stair landing where an information handrail tells them what they are looking at.

(c) The White Balcony ­ – overlooking the Gold Room – has a heavy Black handrail and a white (conventional museum) rear wall for a row of small Icons. These lead to an opening on the right.

(d) The Black Labyrinth – the central zone of the museum is particularly dark and mysterious with individually lit Icons floating in the penumbra. Walls are painted in a collage of matt and gloss black and grey to enhance the collage effect. Side alcoves with lower ceilings and wooden floors bring individually hung Icons intimately close to viewers.

(e) The Red Salon – from the Black Labyrinth visitors emerge into a sensual space where all surfaces are red. The central zone is defined by a 10cm high platform on which stands the iconastas (Altar screen).

(f) The final exhibition room is white with an illuminated ceiling – an ethereal space. The room displays the two most valuable icons from the 14h century.

Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, drawing, Peter Wilson
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, drawing, Peter Wilson
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania, roman mensing
Icon museum korça, korca, Albania
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Model

Monteluce Quarter

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Masterplan / Mixed Use / Landscaping

COUNTRY: Italy

CITY: Perugia

YEAR: 2006 – 2015

COMPETITION: Invited Competition 2006, First Prize

CLIENT: BNL Fondi imobiliari SGR p.A. / Fondo Umbria – Monteluce Unit / BNP Paribas REIM SGR p.A.

AWARDS: Premio Urbanistica 2007 (category Quality of Public Spaces), Italian National Institute of Urban Planning

CONSTRUCTION PHOTOSs: © BNP

MONTELUCE MASTERPLAN

On 12th sept. 2006 the office of Bolles+Wilson was awarded the first prize in the International Design Competition for Monteluce in Perugia.

The jury lead by Axel Sowa, director of “Architecture d’ aujourd’hui” commended the winning entry for its respect and sensitivity to the scale of Monteluce, its morphological compatibility with the historic structure of Perugia and its sympathetic relationship to the surrounding Umbrian landscape.

The Convento delle Clarisse of S. Maria di Monteluce originating in 1218 stands outside the Etruscan walls of Perugia, an outpost protecting one of the main access roads. Expansion outside the medieval walls reached Monteluce at the end of the nineteenth century. A concurrent appropriation of religious assets by the State instigated the opening of a gate to the Piazza Monteluce and between 1910 and 1923 the construction in the monastery garden of a series of hospital pavilions.

The Competition Program developed in close co-operation with the Commune di Perugia called for a total of 65,000 sqm – 43% of which is student and private housing and 25% subsidised housing. The new urban Quartier is networked in terms of a continuity of urban spaces and a rich programmatic mix including a maximum of 10% retail and 5% office use as well as hotel and conference facilities, local health offices, kindergarten and a new public park.

The Bolles+Wilson design developed and presented in 1:500 model format rejects authoritative geometry in favour of a sequencing of localised responses tailored to the dramatic topology and framed views out and across the luxurious Umbrian landscape. For economy and continuity many new structures occupy the footprint of redundant hospital buildings, a strategy that preserves the extensive terraced system of retaining walls and protected trees.

Bolles+Wilson describe their scheme as Urban Choreography, a sequence of public spaces unfolding from the S.Maria di Monteluce church in the west to the new Park d’Este. A first Piazza is framed by the Monestry portico and the one remaining Hospital Pavilion (Public Health Offices). To the north are offices and a submerged supermarket. To the south a Hotel and Conference Pavilion frame the view in the direction of Assisi. A second Conical Piazza is enclosed by a row of student housing buildings to the north and an opposing commercial/ restaurant Acropolis. Here deck- like upper terraces offer spectacular views of the historic skyline and Umbrian landscape.

MONTELUCE QUATTRO

The core of the new urban quarter became the (architectural) responsibility of BOLLES+WILSON (see siteplan). In realization it follows very closely the competition proposal of two Piazzas on the crest of the hill/ridge, underneath these two levels of carparking ensure car free public spaces (500 cars disappear underground). The strategic placement of these two Piazzas follows the typical Perugian trope of leaving one side of a space open for cooling winds and views out across the sensuous and gently rolling Umbrian landscape (views across the valley to Assisi).

The strategy of two piazzas introduces a spatial sequence resulting from the integration of the historic monastery and the12th century chapel – their arched entrance portal announces the entry to the first new Piazza, now named Piazza Cecilia Coppoli (1426-1500, poetess and humanist) and opened on 19th March 2015 by Catiusca Marini – President of the Region of Umbria. Signora Marini described the Monteluce spaces as ‘an investment in the culture of the city, also in the public patrimony of Perugia, an exemplary work and graceful urban transformation, one that experiments with a new contemporary urban architecture.’

Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Foto
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Foto
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Foto
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Foto
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Foto
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Luftbild_Aerial view
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Model
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Model
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Lageplan_Masterplan_Siteplan
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Section_Schnitt
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Foto_Photo
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Foto
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Foto
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Foto
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Photo_Foto
Monteluce Quarter_Perugia_Masterplan_Sketch_Skizze
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_north facade

Housing at St. Sebastian

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 2016
COMPETITION: 2009, 1st prize
GFA: 8.180 sqm
CLIENT: Wohn + Stadtbau GmbH
AWARDS: “Exemplary publicly funded residential projects” – North Rhine-Westphalia Regional Prize for Architecture,
Housing and Urban Development 2017
BDA Münster-Münsterland award for best buildings 2017,
honorable mention
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, BOLLES+WILSON

In 2009 BOLLES+WILSON won the 1st prize for housing and a kindergarten on the site of the 1960ies St Sebastian Church. It was expected that the emblematic oval form of the church be demolished. Instead the kindergarten colonized the nave. It was opened in 2013 – a much published reuse with interior green weather protected play decks.

2015 phase 2 was complete, a peripheral frame of housing protecting the kindergarten from a noisy street and giving a precise edge to the adjacent park.

Market realities are clearly visible in the differentiation of the social (subsidized) housing with its bright white and pink plaster facade to Hammer Str. and the owner-occupied flats with their noble dark brick facade facing the mature trees in the park.

One corner tree is explicitly embraced by the projecting white sheet of the street facade.

Only kitchen and bathroom windows are allowed to receive traffic noise; living rooms and balconies turn inwards to the quiet green space surrounding the kindergarten.

Unexpected colour animates the lift and stair tower and the setback roof apartments. This polychrome trope also animates the skyline of the park elevation. Here big white frames give a grand order, a vertical hierarchy. But ultimately it is the grandeur of the existing trees that claim the status of leading actors in the spatial choreography.

housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
Street façade embracing the tree
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_north facade detail
Façade facing the park
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_north facade
Façade and autumnal trees
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_kindergarten
Façade facing the kindergarten
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_kindergarten
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
Dark brick façade detail
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_facade
Façade embracing the tree
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_siteplan
Siteplan
housing at st sebastian_munster_roman mensing_plan
Standard floor plan
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters

Cinnamon Tower

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Hamburg
YEAR: 2015
COMPETITION: 2006, 1st prize
GFA: 4.250 sqm
CLIENT: Gross & Partner
AWARDS: Deutscher Architektur Preis 2017 (commendation) for Harbour Masters Building Ensemble, BDA Hamburg Architecture Award 2016 (1st prize), German Facade Award for rear-ventilated facades 2015 (commendation)
NOMINATIONS: Mies van der Rohe Award 2017, Polis Award 2017 for Harbour Masters Building Ensemble
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters (tower) | Rainer Mader (pavilion)

The Cinnamon tower was conceived as freestanding campanile – a pin on a piazza was the concept behind the premiated competition design by BOLLES+WILSON for the existing 19th century Harbour Masters Building.

A tower was not anticipated in the competition programme, but the jury agreed that a tower anchors the public functions around the only remaining historical building to survive between the megablocks of the ‘Overseas Quarter’ master plan. The historic building will also be more autonomous.

Slenderness is essential for a campanile. Over the course of its 8-year gestation this was respected – even while its function mutated from stacked restaurants to housing. The 13 x 16 m floor plan tapers towards the top. With a height of 56 meters the tower is 4-times higher than it is wide.

How can such a thin chap be efficient?
The efficient answer is duplex apartments. Originally the concept foresaw seven apartments, each on 2 floors, a panoramic living deck on the upper level and bedrooms with punched windows below. Precise market analysis led to a variation of this formula: one triplex apartment at the top and some 1-floor apartments at lower levels. Built were ten apartments, four with 130 sqm, five with 185 sqm and one with 300 sqm. The tower has a gross floor area of 4.300 sqm and a volume of 16.000 cubic metres. At the ground level, the piazza level is a commercial area of around 300 sqm.

Strict high-rise regulations demanded an escape route from every floor via secured escape stair. The possibility to clean every window from the inside was also a criterion to be met. The spectacular view of the New Elbphilharmonie should not be blurred by dirty windows. Room-high windows on three sides of the living room also allow the tracking of incoming cruise ships.

Facade panels of anodized aluminium sheets in different gradations of dark red correspond to the patchwork of BOLLES+WILSON’s pavilion from 2008. This was the first realized component of the Harbour Masters ensemble. In sunlight these aluminium panels take on colourful nuances while on cloudy days they assume a darker, more serious Paul-Klee like appearance. This is a building that changes its character according to the incidence of light, a new figure on Hamburg’s skyline.

Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Cinnamon tower, Turm, Hamburg, Ueberseequartier, Hochhaus, Christian Richters
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993

Kita 102

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Educational

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Frankfurt

YEAR: 1992 / 2014

CLIENT: Stadt Frankfurt

AWARDS: German Architecture Award 1993, Commendation

PHOTOS: © Waltraud Krase (1992), Rainer Mader (2014)

The 1992 Kita 102 in Frankfurt – Griesheim was one of BOLLES+WILSON’s first buildings in Germany. 22 years later it has been extended. What does it mean to revisit an early work? To measure if it has stood the test of time? Or even if the architectural themes of that time are still pertinent today?

What is immediately obvious is that a generous two floor, curvaceous and somewhat expressive sculpted volume is no longer feasible under today’s stringent budget restrictions (the political promise to deliver a kindergarten place for every child). The new extension is single storey, docking on to and sloping down from, an original 7 m high sport and sleeping hall.

The 3 original ground floor classrooms were for conventional pre-school kindergarten use, and the upper 2 rooms after-school homework facilities for older kids. The 3 new ground level classrooms extend kindergarten functions, kids can run out directly from group to garden.

The original building expands in width and height, a conical volume explained at the time as a metaphor for growing – spaces expand and contract as kids run from one end to another. A narrative scenario that extended to details like 2.10m high doors for teachers beside 1.50 m doors only for kids. Draconian budgets preclude such whimsical game playing in the new extension, perhaps it is also no longer the time for architecture to reflect on its syntactical potential. In the original Kita four windows conspired to inscribe a giant letter K across the facade. A readable building for children who are learning to read. Today it is left to colour to signify. A thematized May-Green has been here co-opted (as in almost every second contemporary Kindergarten) to signal a fresh, playful optimism. It is the only internal colour. Also a green horizontal beam/gutter above a south facing glass facade benevolently grows extended sun-blinds (also May green) to wrap the sunny side in a Mediterranean-like slab of shade. Window articulation is no longer expressive, a tough neighbourhood requires defensive measures if night cooling is to be activated.

What was in 1993 described, as an east-west slab turning its back to the noise of a nearby autobahn is now a very long east west slab, still turning its back and opening southward to an extended linear play-ground.

Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
1st stage (1992)
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
2nd stage (2014)
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
Kita 102, Frankfurt, German Architecture Award 1993
red bar in the sky_korca_roman mensing

Red Bar in the Sky

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Public
COUNTRY: Albania
CITY: Korça
YEAR: 2014
CLIENT: Municipality of Korça
PHOTOS: © Andronira Burda, Daniel Dervishi, Nico Peleshi, Roman Mensing

In time for Christmas 2014 the city of Korça in Albania realized BOLLES+WILSON’s design for a campanile – the Red Bar in the Sky. It focuses the Theatre Square, the concluding phase of the B+W 2009 masterplan (International Competition 1st prize). The campanile which functions as a lookout tower for Korcians to appreciate the delicate grain of their city is located at the end of the central pedestrian boulevard ‘Shën Gjergji’ (landscaping by B+W). Opened in winter the Red Bar in the Sky was accompanied by an ice skating rink installed by Greek skating specialists.

Related project:
Masterplan Korça City Centre, 2009, 1st prize

red bar in the sky_korca_roman mensing
Theatre Square with Red bar in the Sky
red bar in the sky_korca_sketch ice rink
Sketch with ice rink
red bar in the sky_korca_ice rink
Ice rink in front of the Red Bar in the Sky in winter
red bar in the sky_korca_view from Boulevard Shen Gjergji
Boulevard Shen Gjergji with christmas lights and Red Bar in the Sky
red bar in the sky_korca
View from the top over the Boulevard Shen Gjergji
red bar in the sky_korca_masterplan
Korça City Centre Masterplan
red bar in the sky_korca_plan
Siteplan
red bar in the sky_korca_plans
Red Bar in the Sky
red bar in the sky_korca_roman mensing
Plans and elevations
red bar in the sky_korca
Photo before the construction
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters

House P

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2013

GFA: 140 sqm

CLIENT: (private)

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

Small is beautiful (+ energy efficient) – compact 140 sqm private house with outstanding ‘sustainability credentials’.

Plastered monolithic insulating ‘Poroton’ brick walls, triple glazing and a deep bore heat exchange pump lead to a non-fossil fuel energy classification (KFW 70) – 30 per cent below the current energy regulation.

house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, christian richters
house p, haus p, münster, floorplan, groundfloor, erdgeschoss, grundriss
house p, haus p, münster, floorplan, obergeschoss, 1st floor
house p, haus p, münster, fassade, elevation
house p, haus p, münster, section, schnitt
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_dorfmueller kroeger klier

Inselpark Entrance Complex

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office, Residential

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Hamburg

YEAR: 2013

COMPETITION: Invited Competition 2011, First Prize

PHOTOS: © Markus Dorfmüller, Johanna Klier

The masterplan required two towers to mark the entrance to the Garden Show and Building exhibition. The big-brother of the pair, the giant, striped (Jacobs-coat) Sauerbruch and Hutton building, a new hive for Hamburg’s Planning Department (BSU) was not, according to the competition brief, to be upstaged by its neighbour. Already at the outset the bumpy road forward was in evidence when the black facade (no competition for polychromy) of the premiated BOLLES+WILSON entry was rejected by the developers of the railway-track side of the same block – not the right statement for their housing for the elderly. The facade mutated to green. “No green”, said the same developer, green is the colour of their chairman’s football team’s archrivals. The architects insisted that football allegiances is not a credible basis for urban planning decisions, and supported by the ubiquitous director of planning, the corner tower remained green. To get planning approval the developers were caused to sign a commitment that the green ceramic façade, a thematicised official entry to the Garden Show, would not be compromised during planning and construction. A wise requirement as fast track planning was necessitated by delays due to wobbly project financing around 2011. Further down the track a rapid rethink of the green facade was again necessitated by ‘just-in-time’ scheduling. The planed gluing of the rippled ceramic tile stripes would have to happen in winter (sub zero temperatures render glues impotent). A dry system of hung ceramic panels was at the last minute chosen and the respectfully stepping facade arrived as the IBA building exhibition opened.

The 9-floor tower is a medical centre, highly installed individual doctors rooms. Apartments and duplex penthouses with sculptural cut-out balconies occupy the top three floors. A darkening of the green ceramic facade signals a separate function for the four-floor wing to the south. This is the InselAkademie promoting sport for teenagers – not only from the surrounding Wilhelmsburg dockland district, characterised by social housing, immigration and unemployment. The upper floors of the InselAkadamie are group apartments for sporting youth and the lower two floors seminar and the temporary administration rooms of the IBA (International Building Exhibition). This building is in fact the hub of the IBA and also post IBA activities.

inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_dorfmueller kroeger klier
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_dorfmueller kroeger klier
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_dorfmueller kroeger klier
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_aerial view
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_dorfmueller kroeger klier
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_figure ground plan
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_elevation
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_section
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_functions
inselpark entrance complex_hamburg_dorfmueller kroeger klier
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln

Cologne-Muelheim Harbour District

Detail

TYPOLOGY Masterplan

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Cologne

YEAR: 2013 – (2015)

COMPETITION: 2013, dialogic planning process
‘Werkstattverfahren Mülheim Süd Inkl. Hafen’

CLIENT: Stadt Köln

After a dialogic planning process in 2013, the two competing planning teams around kister scheithauser gross (Cologne) and BOLLES+WILSON have teamed up for the next planning stage. The development of Mülheim’s harbour district is still an on-going process integrating various interests and disciplines. The masterplan for this 52 ha harbour area preserves various grand industrial spaces to create a new district with a unique character and atmosphere.

cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln_aerial view_luftbild
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln_plan_schwarzplan
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln_sketch
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln_sketch
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln_sketch
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln_sketch
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln_sketch
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln_masterplan
cologne-muelheim harbour district_koeln-muelheimer hafen_cologne_koeln
st Sebastian_munster_markus hauschild_indoor play area

St. Sebastian

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Educational
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY Münster
YEAR: 2013
COMPETITION: 2009, 1st Prize
PHOTOS: © Markus Hauschild, Christian Richters
HISTORICAL PHOTO: © S. Ahlbrand-Dornseif, R.Wakonigg

A church becomes a kindergarten.
Not heritage listed, already condemned, the St. Sebastian church built in 1962 and deconsecrated in 2008 has been revitalized with the most lively and positive function, i.e. with children.
The elegant elliptical form of the nave physically anchors its surrounding neighborhood. Two levels of kindergarten group rooms are housed within, the roofs of these become an all-weather play deck. Grass green impact-protection flooring and street lights give the play decks the ambience of an outdoor space.
A grid of 50 x 50 cm unglazed openings, the only originally glazed light source in the church, provide constant, natural ventilation. Cold in winter, comfortably temperate in summer, but always dry, this magical inside/outside space is flooded with light.
Adjacent to the kindergarten nave, a new street facing extension houses the main entrance, kitchen, offices, technical rooms and one multipurpose room. This is available for neighborhood events.

st sebastian_munster_christian richters_facade
View across the outdoor area
st Sebastian_munster_drawing
Idea Sketch
st sebastian_munster_model
Model
st sebastian_munster_markus Hauschild_interior
Indoor play decks
st sebastian_munster_markus hauschild_interior
st sebastian_munster_markus hauschild_interior
st sebastian_munster_markus hauschild_interior
st sebastian_munster_markus hauschild_interior
st sebastian_munster_markus hauschild_exterior
Annex in the East
st sebastian_munster_markus Hauschild_interior
st sebastian_munster_christian richters_interior
Interior
st sebastian_munster_siteplan
Siteplan
st sebastian_munster_elevation
East elevation with main entrance
st sebastian_munster_elevation
South elevation
st sebastian_munster_plans
Plans
st Sebastian_munster_ahlbrand-dornseiff_wakonigg_historical
Historical image of the church
st Sebastian_munster_construction
Construction
st Sebastian_munster_construction
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
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters

Raakspoort

Detail

Raakspoort – City Hall and Bioscoop

TYPOLOGY: Office / Leisure

COUNTRY: The Netherlands

CITY: Haarlem

YEAR: 2011

GFA: 18.500 sqm

CLIENT: MAB Development Nederland B.V.

AWARDS: NRW Jaarprijs, Best Retail Development, NL, 2013

Brick Award, Worldwide Brick, GB, 2012

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

Transformative processes, particularly those relating to delicate fine-grained historic cities like Haarlem are complex and protracted. In the case of the Raaks project it took more than ten years to evolve from the considered Urban Masterplan (Donald Lambert – Kraaijvanger Urbis) through a sequence of workshops and program rethinks to the final ensemble, which opened in October 2011.

At the outset BOLLES+WILSON were given responsibility for the outermost block of this close packed, highly urban redevelopment precinct – which as it turns out (and as the masterplan prescribed) intertwines almost seamlessly with the adjacent small-scale urban fabric – a neighbourhood. The edge block must both shield (traffic) and invite (pedestrians), it must signal and respectfully take its place in the sequence of facades that define the historic limit of the medieval city. Initiating site workshops brought together neighbourhood representatives, city representatives, developers and architects – BOLLES+WILSON, Claus en Kaan, Jo Crepain and Kraaijvanger Urbis (who also had responsibility for the large format carpark below).

The complex functional mix began with one large and seven smaller Cinemas on the upper levels, a subterranean Casino and below that a parking deck (for croupiers and gamblers). Even at this stage the two functions were divided by a bisecting passage leading from the visible and representative outside facade to the networked block interior. The question of scale and historic referencing of the windowless

Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Ansicht, elevation
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Christian Richters
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Lageplan, site plan
Raakspoort, Raaks, Haarlem, the Netherlands, Grundriss, ground floor
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters

City Library Helmond

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural

COUNTRY: The Netherlands

CITY: Helmond

YEAR: 2010

COMPETITION: 2006, First Prize

GFA: 5.630 sqm

CKIENT: City of Helmond

COLLABORATOR: Vrencken Hoen Architecten

AWARD: Fritz Hoeger Preis 2014, Winner Special Mention

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

Like most Dutch cities Helmond is busy reinventing itself. The new City Library, which officially opens in October 2010, is the first component of a comprehensive new inner city shopping zone (masterplan: Prof. Joan Busquets). Directly adjacent to the new library are the 1970’s Tree Houses and Theatre by Piet Blom. Here the new library facade is moulded and sloped in dialogue with its dramatic neighbour. A between space, a block internal café terrace, a comfortable and dramatic extension of the existing enclosed Theatre Square is the result of this spatial symbiosis.
The outer, street-facing facade is the representative face and entrance of the new library. Upper level projections mark the extremities, brackets (ears) carrying large-format ‘Bibliotheek’ letters. A horizontal facade articulation differentiates ground level shops from glazed and setback first floor (Children’s Library) and the brick surface of the upper office level.

A careful detailing and material choice for external surfaces provides a ‘tactility’ fitting to the historic Helmond city centre. Rough dark brown and unusually horizontal bricks (Hilversum format 50 x 290 mm) on upper levels have open vertical joints and a beige horizontal mortar joint, stressing the layered grain of the brickwork. In contrast the base is in a flat beige brick (in 3 different heights – 50, 100, 140 mm). These are not laid in mortar, but glued together – resulting in a stone-like solidity and homogeneity.

The internal spaces of the library are developed as an unfolding spatial sequence. Much of the ground floor is given over to retail. Entry is from both sides – via a generous double height entrance hall to the street side and via the more intimate café and event corner facing the Theatre Court. The upward sequence is announced by a grand stair, which arrives at a first floor exhibition deck and the ‘piano nobile’ of the library. Here information stations, bookshelves and children / teenager zones are arranged around a central media Hot Spot: precisely circular, a Chinese-red sandwich. The Hot Spot offers the digital latest. The route continues upward concluding in the light-filled upper level with a long working bench integrated in the long ‘tree house-facing’ window.

BOLLES+WILSON’s commission also included furniture and lighting elements, the choreographing of atmosphere and character. Lanterns in the foyer, a newspaper reading table, a striped and upholstered café bench seat with Scandinavian lighting, information counters and a group study room with fragments of a 1950’s mural mounted on the wall, are among the long list of localised detail. The philosophy is one of multiplicity, a user-friendly comfort already much appreciated by librarians and reading Helmonders.

City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Photo_Foto_Christian Richters
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Sketch_Skizze
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Siteplan_Lageplan
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Section_Schnitt
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Plan_Grundriss
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Plan_Lageplan
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Plan_Grundriss
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Lamps_Lampen
City Library_Stadtbuecherei_Helmond_Sketch_Skizze

Rationalist Apartments

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Residential

COUNTRY: Albania

CITY: Tirana

YEAR: 2009

An eight floor building axially adjacent to the University ensemble – the axial focus of Tirana’s 1930’s Italian Masterplan.

Mass is emphasized, balconies internalized as loggias. Materials are reduced to those fitting historical precedent and the current possibilities of construction in Tirana. The particular ‘haptic’ of the base is achieved with wide mortar joints and intentionally irregular layers of broken (reject) tile fragments.

rs yellow distribution_munster_markus hauschild

RS+Yellow Distribution

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Light Industrial, Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2009

GFA: 9.200 sqm

CLIENT: Rainer Scholze

AWARDS: German Façade Award 2010

PHOTOS: © Guido Erbring, Markus Hauschild, Christian Richters

When is a warehouse a lake? – in Münster.

This is the third BOLLES+WILSON building for the German-wide furniture chain RS+Yellow, an extension of the homebase storage and distribution centre by 7,000 sqm. The new rectangular building volume stands adjacent to the original 1992 corrugated aluminium warehouse.

The 60 x 66 m two stores ‘Big-Box’ is (as is usual for industrial architecture) reduced to a regular grid of pre-cast columns and widespan floor slabs. Facades are a standard lightweight concrete system. Verticality is emphasised with pyjama colour stripes interspersed with zinc coated grid stripes. These absorb all windows and necessary smoke outlets into an uninterrupted colour curtain.

This warehouse and even perhaps the 1,500 sqm of offices above the delivery bays are precisely realised but relatively conventional. The big surprise comes on arriving at the rooftop meeting rooms and executive offices. Through the intervention of the fire brigade (choreographed alarm) the roof of the building has been flooded – a 45 x 65 m reflecting pool.

The edge detail, laser levelled into invisibility, increases the metaphysical unreality of this sky reflector. Underwater compartments eliviate the risk of mini-tsunamis. Spillage is collected in edge channels and channelled to an internal cistern.

A wooden boardwalk fronts the large format sliding glass facade. A pier extends out to the centre of the water world. Here one can sit surrounded by geometric groves of bamboo. From here the south facing glass front of the roof pavilion reflects again the rippling expanse of water. The facade itself is shaded by a projecting steel pergola and a curtain of louvers descending at the press of a button from its outer edge.

This choreographed overlap of inside and outside, of natural and artificial, of direct and reflected light, create a unique atmosphere which could be described as an industrial scaled Japanese Tea-House.

rs yellow distribution_munster_markus hauschild
Offices with open sun louvres
rs yellow distribution_munster_markus hauschild
Offices with closed sun louvres
rs yellow distribution_munster_markus hauschild
View over the rooftop pool
rs yellow distribution_munster
View from the office with open sun louvres
rs yellow distribution_munster
View from the office with closed sun louvres
rs yellow distribution_munster
Warehouse façade
rs yellow distribution_munster
Fire brigade flooding the pool
rs yellow distribution_munster
Pool getting filled
rs yellow distribution_munster_plan_ground floor
Ground floor plan
rs yellow distribution_munster_plann_roof top
Upper floor plan
rs yellow distribution_munster_section
Section
korca city centre masterplan_korca_model

Korça City Centre Masterplan

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Masterplan
COUNTRY: Albania
CITY: Korça
YEAR: 2009
COMPETITION: 1rst Prize
CLIENT: Municipality of Korça
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, © BOLLES+WILSON

On Thursday 16 July 2009 the mayor and international jury pronounced BOLLES+WILSON winner of the competition for the new Korça City Centre Masterplan. The international two-stage competition was decided in favour of the Muenster based office for its concept of “Scenographic Urbanism”, a choreographing of new buildings and public spaces which pays close attention to the existing grains and potentials of this small but spatially complex city.

Surrounded by dramatic mountains and a wide arcadian valley Korça focuses a region of 360,000 inhabitants. Its urbane morphology reflects the wealth and ambitions of returning emigrants as well as historically strong trade relations with central Europe. Many Novecento and Art Nouveau villas are now restored, many are still crumbling. The aim of the competition was to find a clear concept, which integrates a traffic and pedestrian rational with the qualitative and development needs of the city – a commercial strategy, administrative facilities and residential development. The competition brief also emphasised that the scale of the new Korça should be respectful and appropriate to the historic scale.

_

BOLLES+WILSON identified five zones for the revitalisation of the 197,000 sqm city centre. Each zone possessing its own unique character, together they add up to a network of urbane public spaces. At one end of the centre the Cathedral of ‘Christus Resurrection’ anchors, at the other end a Commercial Anchor is added. These are connected by the Boulevard Shen Gjergji – now transformed into a ‘Cultural Promenade’. Reduction in expansive communist road widths allows an extension of the Cathedral Square. This square is planned three steps above the street and framed by café pergolas, an optical filter between traffic and event space. A large stage left of the cathedral and a smaller stage to the right facilitate a wide variety of events. Curved paving stripes echo the Cathedral geometry and serve to discipline market stands.

New figure on the Korça skyline and counterpoint to the Cathedral, a “Vertical Mall” occupies and marshals the parade-ground scaled Theatre Square. A new commercial strip extends from here to the Bazaar via new shopping/housing blocks and a new Bus Station Roof – a Farmers-market platform.

This – the second of the five zones – creates a new commercial hub in downtown Korça.

The third zone is rescripted as a ‘Cultural promenade’, a semi-pedestrian connection between Cathedral and downtown Mall. Here a number of significant buildings such as the ‘Education Museum’ are extended out into the tree-lined, shady and café-filled Promenade as a carpet-like patterned paving, a choreographed sequence of ‘Patterned Squares – Urban Living Rooms’.

The fourth zone revitalises a villa zone with carefully placed new development. In order not to overwhelm the delicate historic scale of Korça a ‘Patchwork Strategy’ is invented – new buildings are paired with restored existing villas to form ‘Development Islands’ (shared economic benefit) and thereby create a network of active block-internal passages.

The final zone of the Masterplan is the ‘Enlarged Park’ (‘green heart’). Here a new triangular-block frames the park edge and by the sale of public land for private development finances the upgrading of the park itself.

_

Related project:
Red Bar in the Sky, Theatre Square, Korça, 2014

korca city centre masterplan_korca_aerial photo
Korça city centre before BOLLES+WILSON interventions
korca city centre masterplan_korca_siteplan
Masterplans with interventions
korca city centre masterplan_korca_zoning
Zoning
korca city centre masterplan_korca_cathedral
New Cathedral Square
korca city centre masterplan_korca_market
Market stands at the Bazaar
korca city centre masterplan_korca_3d
Cafés at the Cathedral Square
korca city centre masterplan_korca_3d
The Vertical Mall
korca city centre masterplan_korca_sketch
Activated passages in the Villa Zone
korca city centre masterplan_korca_plan boulevard
Cultural Promenade with Patterned Squares as Urban Living Rooms
korca city centre masterplan_korca_cathedral
Cultural Promenade under construction at the Boulevard Shen Gjergji
korca city centre masterplan_korca_collage
Cathedral façade carpet
korca city centre masterplan_korca_construction old cathedral
korca city centre masterplan_korca_new municipality
Old library with new cathedral façade carpet
korca city centre masterplan_korca_roman mensing_boulevard
New Boulevard Shen Gjergji
korca city centre masterplan_korca
Conversations in front of the old library
korca city centre masterplan_korca_sketch
Sketch of the BOLLES+WILSON interventions
korca city centre masterplan_korca_model
Model
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague

Spuimarkt

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Shopping // Retail, Leisure, Cultural

COUNTRY: The Netherlands

CITY: The Hague

YEAR: 2008

Masterplan 1997

Design Commercial Block 2005-2007

GFA: 36.400 sqm

CLIENT: ING Vastgoed, The Hague; Pathé Theatres B.V.

COLLABORATOR: Bureau Bouwkunde (facilitating architect)

AWARDS: Shopping Centre of the Year NL 2009

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

The Spuimarkt is a permeable block, it hosts the life of the city (tides and eddies of shoppers), it leads Bioscoop and other leisure seekers dramatically upward, and perches them in grand foyers, outlook windows, privileged vantages. The Pathé cinema foyer is a Piranesian space, its stairs flow dramatically upward, they cross, they hover. Just arriving at one of the nine cinemas (2,270 seats) is a cinematic experience – along the way some of the best views in Den Haag.

A richly textured brick facade gives unity and dignity to the whole block; the tactility of the rotated and projecting bricks is comparable to a tweed jacket, its hand-made quality both abstract and traditional. Spuimarkt’s sculptured corporal autonomy is carefully dovetailed into the wider context, mediating between the Bijenkorf and the City Hall to form a trilogy of major urban statements. The building’s varying scales respond to the surrounding context, the grand Grote Marktstraat facade steps down behind to the more intimate street scale of Gedempte Gracht. The lower Pathé cinema entrance reflects the height of the traditional houses it faces.

The sinuous roof silhouette, moulded around the cinema within, is like a topographic landform; an anchoring that gives measure and scale to the complex Den Haag skyline.

Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, floor plan, grundriss
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, floor plan, grundriss
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, floor plan, grundriss
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, floor plan, grundriss
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, sketch, drawing
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague
Spuimarkt, The Netherlands, The Hague, sketch, drawing
Eemcentrum Masterplan, Amersfoort, the Netherlands, sketch, drawing Peter Wilson

Eemcentrum Masterplan

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Masterplan

COUNTRY: The Netherlands

CITY: Amersfoort

YEAR: 2008

GFA: 60.000 sqm

CLIENT: AM Vastgoed, Gouda / City of Amersfoort

Direct Planning Commission (City of Amersfoort) 2003

The Eemcentrum is a new cultural, leisure and residential quartier directly adjacent to the historic city centre. Cinema, housing and commercial components in combination with new city library, art school and pop podium face a conical and sloped square/garden which expands perspectively over its 200 m length. This scenographic choreography developed by BOLLES+WILSON constitutes the aesthetic and legal masterplan for the individual building commissions. Peter Wilson was also planning supervisor monitoring and coordinating the architectural development of the urban ensemble.

Eemblock – O’Donnell + Tuomey

Row Houses – Drost + van Veen

Cinema – Koen van Velsen

Shopping/Housing/Offices – Mecannoo

Library/Art School/Pop Podium – Neutelings Riedijk

Landscaping – Sant en Co

Eemcentrum Masterplan, Amersfoort, the Netherlands, site plan, lageplan
Eemcentrum Masterplan, Amersfoort, the Netherlands, site plan, lageplan
Eemcentrum Masterplan, Amersfoort, the Netherlands
Eemcentrum Masterplan, Amersfoort, the Netherlands
Eemcentrum Masterplan, Amersfoort, the Netherlands
Eemcentrum Masterplan, Amersfoort, the Netherlands
Eemcentrum Masterplan, Amersfoort, the Netherlands, sketch, aquarelle, Peter Wilson, drawing
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm

100 West Cromwell Road

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Mixed Use

COUNTRY: UK

CITY. London

YEAR: 2008

CLIENT: Brookfield Development (UK) LTD, TESCO Stores Limited

PHOTOS MODEL : © Julian Vogt

The raked tower silhouette terminates the wide street axis for those exiting London westward. At its base the tower extends horizontally, a Fitness Arm (window to pool) frames the Tesco Plaza. The E Form begins at the third floor concourse, above existing carpark decks. The south elevation is glazed (winter gardens); the east and west are dark rippled ceramic.

Community Use: The inclusion of an additional swimming pool for the sole use of the local community has increased the Gross Internal Area of the community facility by some 30%. A Community Trust will be established to manage the pool and associated facilities.

100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm_model
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm_model
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm_model
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm:sketch_skizze
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm:sketch_skizze
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm_elevation_section_schnitt_ansicht
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm_plan_grundriss
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm:sketch_skizze
100 west cromwell road_london_residential_wohnturm:sketch_skizze
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, Eingang, Rainer mader

Kaldewei Entrance

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Ahlen

YEAR: 2007

COMPETITION: –

GFA: 550 m2

CLIENT: Franz Kaldewei GmbH & Co. KG

PHOTOS: © Rainer Mader, Christian Richters

The small ‘signalising’ pavilion re-focuses and re-orients the visitors entrance to the main Kaldewei production plant. The pavilion stands like a bookend in relation to the original 1930s Works Facade of the leading manufacturer of enamel steel bathtubs. It connects to new reception spaces within the existing structure and to a planned administration wing.

The mass of the stone-clad volume projects acrobatically. Structural dexterity is not the issue, mass is here co-opted as a silent, announcing presence. The lobby behind is carved out of the existing volume. Meeting rooms hover above the entrance, the white stone of the new facade extends inwards as lobby floor and wall material. A steel spiral stair stands centre-stage and backlit by a dematerialised ‘Light Wall’. After the spatial expansion of the lobby, lower ceilings and an emphasized materiality of wood panels introduce a contrasting intimacy. The ‘Actor Stair’ leads the visitor through a short but complex spatial sequence. The spatial and material language here is closely related to that of BOLLES+WILSONs first Kaldewei building. – the nearby KKC (Competence Centre) 2003-2005.

Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, Eingang, christian Richters
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, plan, Lageplan
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, stairs, treppe, Rainer mader
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, stairs, treppe, foto, rainer mader
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, stairs, treppe, foto, christian richters
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, stairs, treppe, foto, rainer mader
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, stairs, treppe, foto, christian richters
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, Eingang, treppe, foto, Rainer mader
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, Eingang, treppe, foto, Rainer mader
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, Eingang, treppe, foto, Rainer mader
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, Eingang, Rainer mader
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, plan florrplan, section
Kaldewei entrance, Ahlen, stairs, treppe, sketch, Skizze, Peter Wilson, drawing
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters

Landscaping Hotel NY

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Landscape

COUNTRY: The Netherlands

CITY: Rotterdam – Kop van Zuid

YEAR: 2006

CLIENT: City of Rotterdam (dS+U), Hotel New York partner

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

The former embarkation point for emigration to the New World – a ‘Holland/America’ theme. Two landscapes (intimate Dutch gardens and a prairie-like American event- space) are divided by a conceptual border. Large scale text (like a Steinberg drawing) is inlayed in the pavement. To date the Dutch side including the Hotel Terrace, Maaskant Pavilion, vent Funnels, playground and intimate Dutch gardens is complete. despite regular dockings of American warships the narrative landscape on the American side of the Dutch-Amerika border remains unexecuted.

Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Plan_Pavillon
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Christian Richters
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Siteplan_Lageplan
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Plan
Hotel New York_Rotterdam_Landscaping_Landschaftsplanung_Sketch_Skizze_Peter Wilson
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_photo

2 Harbour Buildings

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2006

GFA No. 14: 6.400 sqm

GFA No. 16: 5.000 sqm

CLIENTt: LVM Versicherungen, Julia B. Bolles-Wilson, Peter Wilson

PHOTOS: © Rainer Mader, Christian Richters

Like its big brothers in Rotterdam, Hamburg, London or Genoa, Münsters canal harbour (released from servitude) is in the process of becoming – but what – a new urban quartier, bar and café mile, victim of city-event culture or melancholic post-industrial hangout for artists and architects.

No. 14 and No. 16 like their warehouse predecessors are ambivalent as to exactly what goods or activities they host. Deep (22m) loft plans facilitate a multitude of layouts. Facades on the other hand are specific, material and character giving.

No. 14, a sharply sculptured orange end building turns out on close inspection to be a stack of bricks close-packed in North-South direction (heads to harbour and street, sides to the end walls), an overt tactility eclipsed by flush mounted sun blinds. Seen from afar the overall volume has photoshop-like graphic quality, a designed lack of depth.

A ballet of sun-louvers also animates the South harbour-facing and predominately glass facade of No. 16. A stepped curtain creating (on sunny days) an intermediate zone between inside and out. Without the obligation of transparency (harbour panorama) or sun protection (North) the street facade of No. 16 conjures a tapestry of muted anodised colour, generous glass squares and 3D projections.

Morse code: The attentive viewer will also discover a 3 cm high ‘dot-dash’ inscription on the lower verge of each balcony, the work of the Dutch artist Milou van Ham. Old Barge Captains and ‘persevering school classes’ will decipher the text:

good day! you are (now) reading a building (2005- ) by BOLLES+WILSON (1980- ). you are (now) reading an artwork (2005- ) by milou van ham (1964- ). you are (now) reading morse-code (1837-2000) by samuel morse (1791-1872). you are (now) in the harbour (1898-2005- ) of muenster (793- ). end

two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_no 14_christian richters
Street facing façade of No. 14
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_rainer mader
Street facing façade of No. 16
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_rainer mader
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_christian richters
Entrance No. 16
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_christian richters
Central access area No. 16
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_rainer mader
Inside the cantilever extension No. 16
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_christian richters
Exemplary office No. 16
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_no 16_christian richters
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_no 16_christian richters
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_open sun screens_plan_ground floor
Ground floor plan
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_plan
Standard floor plan
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_siteplan
Siteplan
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_open sun screens_christian richters
Harbour facing façade with closed sun shades
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_closed sunscreens_christian richters
Harbour facing façade with open sun shades
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_no 16_facade_christian richters
Balcony façade detail
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_facade_rainer mader
Morse code
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_elevation
South elevation
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_elevation
North elevation
two harbour buildings_hafenweg 14 und 16_munster_facade
Façade principle
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model

BEIC

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural

COUNTRY: Italy

CITY: Milan

YEAR: (final design 2005)

COMPETITION: Invited Competition 2001, 1st Prize

GFA: 83.000 sqm

CLIENT: Fondazione BEIC, Milan

COLABORATORS: ati BEIC Milan: BOLLES+WILSON with ahw Ingenieure and alterstudio partners

PHOTOS MODEL: © Tomasz Sameck

MEDIA: 900.000 books, 150.000 audio-visual media, 3.500 user seats

The BEIC is in the state of becoming. It already exists on the agendas of countless participating planners, librarians, expertly shepherding clients, politicians, Milanese and other future users. As the planning steadily marches through preliminare, definitivo and on to esecutivo phases, expectations multiply (optimism is contagious) and the physical character, the individuality, the unique spaces of this exceptional endeavour come ever more sharply into focus. Despite the grand scale the building conjures a certain intimacy for individual users. It invents an entirely new constellation of the ‘house of knowledge’, where digital ephemerality cohabits with our old friend the book. The emerging BEIC remains true to the concept that won the architectural competition. Within this architectural and organizational framework countless refinements have been invented (terracotta facade, the bar-chart-acoustically-absorptive interior panelling) and significant opportunities like the earthquake resistant wave-like ceilings have been identified and integrated.

Urban Concept – The site is linear, as is the remembered trajectory of the Stazione Vittoria. The BEIC’s two doors address the east (the centre of Milan, Viale Umbria) and the west (new subway exit, Viale Mugello and the new sport and recreation landscape beyond). An east-west pedestrian walkway runs not parallel to but through the BEIC – urban networking.

A 36 m high Urban Landmark – A vessel of culture and information, invitation, frame and enabler to multiple passages and trajectories. Entrance ramps fold surrounding pavements up to the +5.00 piazza, entrances and lobby. Reading arms extend out from the main volume.

Windows like that to the main elevator lobby on axis with the Via Vertoiba, tie through framed views the interior back into the urban context.

The terraces of the various departments frame a communicative forum, a landscape of knowledge. Reading salons nestled into the sidewalls of the frame or balcony edge desks offer a wide variety of working atmospheres. Warm acoustically absorptive materials provide the required library ambience.

Program – A 5 m high socle contains all functions outside the controlled library Conference, Teaching Centre, Media Forum, Childrens Library with garden, carparks. The walkthrough Lobby gives a visual orientation to all departments galleried above. It flows into the entrance, general information and reference zones. Reading Rooms are on the north side, Users Own in the east arm, connecting to youth areas. Departments are on three upper balconies, with variable stores and connected via ramps in the reading arms a flowing together. Workshops, offices and administration are in the 3 storey arm along the Via Monte Ortigara. 

BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Elevation_Ansicht
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Aerial view_Luftbild
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Siteplan_Lageplan
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Plan_Grundriss
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Plan_Grundriss
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Elevation_Ansicht
BEIC_Milan_Mailand_Bibliothek_Library_Model
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

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
Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum

Himmelsscheibe Exhibition Centre

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Cultural

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Nebra

YEAR: 2004

COMPETITION: Invited competition

AWARDS: Special price

An observation Tower connects an archaeological dig to its wider landscape. Nearby the Corten clad visitors centre with its cargo of sky disk (4,000 years old sky map) paraphernalia wriggles a few metres above rolling fields casting at its extremity a laconic glance skywards.

Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum
Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum
Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum
Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum
Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum
Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum, drawing, zeichnung, plan, grundriss, lageplan
Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum, sketch, Skizze, drawing, zeichnung
Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum, model, Modell
Nebra Himmelsscheibe, exhibition centre, Besucherzentrum, model, Modell
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters

Falkenried

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Masterplan, Residential, Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Hamburg-Eppendorf

YEAR: 2004

COMPETITION: Masterplan Competition 1999, First Prize

GFA: 34.500 sqm

CLIENT: Bayerische Hausbau GmbH, Munich

AWARDS: German Urban Planning Award 2004

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

The anatomy of redundant bus and tram workshop/sheds was co-opted as the organising template for this 1999 premiated Quartier Masterplan. An east west piazza focusses the networked block interior.

The principles of the Masterplan were: The ‘loftising’ of one workshop shed, a brick administration building which grows into penthouses and bus garage doors which envelope row-houses.

Southward from the piazza a spatial choreography of Office Slab and Housing Tower leads over a raised terrace with a second (zigzag) office facade, past a café/bar, down an Eisenstein stair to street and canal. This perspectival sequence – an opening and closing of large scale urban rooms – is homogenised by its rich and tactile material, a ‘Hamburg-solid turf-fired brick’.

Hamburg, Falkenried, sketch, drawing, Peter Wilson, handzeichnung, Skizze, Perspektive
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Hamburg, Falkenried, Foto, Christian Richters
Wohn und Stadtbau Housing Association Headquarters_munster_christian richters

Wohn und Stadtbau Housing Association Headquarters

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Munster

YEAR: 2004

COMPETITION: 2001, First prize

CLIENT: Wohn und Stadtbau GmbH

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters

Entering the city from the north, a straight road, at the apex of its perspectival triangle a silhouette of cathedral and other church towers. Progressing into this picture, slightly downhill the view is gradually obscured, the outer traffic ring crossed.

The next 500 m rise, not a dramatic topography but enough to awaken expectation – ‘up there I will be in the city’. Buildings on the right enclose and to some extent counteract the latent drama of this ascent, this arrival. The left is undergoing a transformation, a re-configuring, a chance for a modulated roofline to enhance topographic character.

This is the intention of the sculpted silhouette of the new offices of the ‘Wohn+Stadtbau’ Housing Association. Its crest location is critical. The structured plaster façades of both volumes do not just echo but enhance site topography and the drama of entrance.

Entering the building involves a counter and smaller scale spatial sequence. The building front steps back from the heavily trafficked street to a transparent foyer. The ground floor facilitates intensive visitor traffic, waiting spaces extend into the internal court and playground.

Wohn und Stadtbau Housing Association Headquarters_munster_christian richters
Wohn und Stadtbau Housing Association Headquarters_munster_christian richters
Wohn und Stadtbau Housing Association Headquarters_munster_christian richters
Wohn und Stadtbau Housing Association Headquarters_munster_christian richters
Wohn und Stadtbau Housing Association Headquarters_munster_plan
Wohn und Stadtbau Housing Association Headquarters_munster_collage

RS+Yellow Furniture

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Retail

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Münster

YEAR: 2003

GFA: 7.700 sqm

CLIENT: Rainer Scholze

AWARDS: Award for Exemplary Corporate Architecture in NRW 2004

PHOTOS: © Christian richters

‘A staging of shopping’. The widespan shop outlet typology usually situated on the periphery is here reconstituted as an urban facade, city near and addressing the city bound / city exiting traffic. Three stores (RS, Yellow, Brands) with an overall shop area of 5.000 m2 cluster with warehouse and delivery bays, around an internal parking piazza. An advertising tower erupts on one corner, a supersign, a new actor in the quartier’s tower landscape (Trinity Church and Fire Station Tower).

A theatrically proportioned roof frames the pedestrian/car entrance. This transition space is a constructed perspective (rejecting any ideal viewing point), a reciprocal scenographic framing of inner and outer world. The hovering roof grows out of and connects the two larger shops. Logistics are critical – 18 m long lorries cross the piazza and disappear into the building.

The exaggerated scale of the wooden window frames in RS (which sells wooden furniture) are stacked like boxes (These 35 cm wide frames sidestep a local building regulation that prohibits wooden facades on retail structures). A dialogue between contained and container that continues in the interior detailing. Both structure (prefabricated concrete) and the materiality (fibre-cement panels) of the facades respond with an economic and systemized appropriateness to the ‘outlet’ building type.

RS Yellow Naturholzmöbel, Münster, christian Richters
RS Yellow Naturholzmöbel, Münster
RS Yellow Naturholzmöbel, Münster
RS Yellow Naturholzmöbel, Münster, Lageplan, plan
RS Yellow Naturholzmöbel, Münster, floorplan
RS Yellow Naturholzmöbel, Münster, model, Modell
RS Yellow Naturholzmöbel, Münster, model, Modell
RS Yellow Naturholzmöbel, Münster, model, Modell
RS Yellow Naturholzmöbel, Münster, model, Modell
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo

City Hall Willich

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Willich

YEAR: 2003

COMPETITION: 2001, First prize

GFA: 2.630 sqm

CLIENT: Stadt Willich

PHOTOS: © Christian Richters, © BOLLES+WILSON

The entrance to Schlosspark Neersen is framed by the parallel sides of the Schloss / City Hall and the new building for the City Hall technical Departments.

With its wide span-cantilevered canopy and transparent facade the new addition presents its functions like a building scale vitrine.

The enclosing back wall is in a discrete and modest industrial brick, in keeping with the suburban surrounds and at the same time a reference to the nearby Mies van der Rohe Haus Lange and Haus Esters.

City Hall Willich_willich_christian richters
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_christian richters
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_photo
City Hall Willich_willich_schematic site plan
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_christian richters_section_plan_schnitt_grundriss
City Hall Willich_willich_technisches rathaus_collage
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg

Dom Quartier

Detail

TYPOLOGY: Office

COUNTRY: Germany

CITY: Magdeburg

YEAR: 2002

COMPETITION: Invited Competition 1997, First Prize

GFA: 48.000 sqm

CLIENT: Nord/LB

PHOTOS: © Roland Halbe, Klemens Ortmeyer, Christian Richters, Edmund Summer

The extensive Square of Germany’s oldest Gothic Cathedral is framed to the east and north by Neo-Baroque (post-war reconstructed) Parliament and Chancellery for the state of Sachsen-Anhalt. The enclosure of the square is completed with these two new blocks housing a bank (Nord LB), Chamber of Commerce, offices, shops and restaurants.

The wider urban context is noble but battered and heterogeneous in the extreme. Only occasional fragments of the medieval or 19th century Prussian Administration city remain, marooned between socialist system built housing slabs. With German Reunification and the subsequent building boom Magdeburg like most east German cities was the recipient of a number of inner city shopping blocks and speculative offices competing in the free market rush with an explosion of out-of-town shopping and office boxes. In the subsequent economically depressed atmosphere the two new ‘Domplatz’ blocks represent foundation stones for a considered qualitative and long term investment in the culture of the city.

Two blocks are divided into three (three users) by the introduction of the ‘Bankgasse’ which bisects and animates the larger block, extends a Domplatz tree Allee and focuses on the neighbouring St. Sebastian. A compositional strategy of scenographic sequences (external and internal), and significant details (serpentine corners), rigorous geometries and poetic moments.

Volumetric stringency (a rigorous facade height of 20 metres and paired windows), are ameliorated by the patchwork texture and colour variations of the blue/grey stone facade (Brazilian Azul Macaubas). A haptic richness not unlike the irregular weathering of the 800 year old cathedral stones. Glazed and canopied Roof Pavilions set up above the rigorous parapet line a sequence of cross city vector relationships.

Systematized Office Interiors are interrupted by a larger sequence of movement spaces with light walls and material elaboration (Banking Hall, Atrium, Entrance Lobbies, Rooftop Restaurant).

Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Plan
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto, Roland halbe
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, sketch, drawing, Zeichnung,
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, dom Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, interior, interieur
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier, Foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, Erdgeschoss, groundfloor, floorplan
Magdeburg, Nord LB, Som Quartier
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, Zeichnung, detail, schnitt, section
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, foto
Nord LB, Dom Quartier Magdeburg, drawing, sketch, Skizze, Zeichnung, Peter Wilson
Magdeburg, Nord LB, dom Quartier, Drawing, Sketch, Peter Wilson
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