Ligor Rembeci
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.
City Hall Willich
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.
Loddenheide Water Purification Plant
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.
Albanian Football Association Headquarters Tirana
TYPOLOGY: Administration Offices
COUNTRY: Albania
CITY: Tirana
YEAR: 2020
PHOTOS: © Roman Mensing, BOLLES+WILSON
LOCAL ARCHITECTS: APE Shpk
The commission was first for the reuse of a derelict crescent shaped communist building, (Illus 2A), not a comfortable fit for open plan offices and upper level president and executive council rooms. `X´columns were here invented to support the top-heavy layout. These survived the decision to demolish and build a new headquarters. Both layouts framed a green field site embraced by a ring of trees. Existing pines were also retained.
Layout – Four levels of open plan offices lurk behind the ambulant `X´ Colonnade. These are for the various departments: event management, national team dept, marketing, referees, finance, legal, human resources, drivers etc. (Illus. 7 + 8).
The rear side entrance is themed green and blue with a canopy and raised entrance plaza above a press and conference
room for 180. (Illus. 9. 3.4.5.6.)
Albania is now embedded in the UEFA international football circuit and the success of their HQ has led to the 2925 commission for BOLLES+WILSON to design a partner building on the same site – A 5-star Hotel for the Albanian National Team (Illus. 14).
A SECOND BUILDING ON THE SAME SITE.
2025-2029
Falkenried
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’.
