Hafenweg 16 is the loft/office building that BOLLES+WILSON have built for themselves, a homebase and modest manifesto. Like their warehouse predecessors such harbour buildings are ambivalent as to exactly what goods or activities they host – 22 m deep loft plans facilitate a multitude of layouts. Facades on the other hand are specific, material, character giving.
Without the necessity of sun-screening the north facing street facade intersperses maximised non-openable window squares with openable vertical casements. The resulting patchwork facilitates open-plan or cellular office layouts while promoting a further textural iteration of the patchwork theme in the alternating colours of the anodised facade panels. Depending on the time and the brightness of the day, sombre aubergine, blue and green vary in hue, like reflections on oil, from ‘melancholic penumbra’ to ‘springtime Paul Klee’. A reflective quality, which like Tanizaki’s shadows, prioritises not the instantaneous effects of photography but a sustained and contemplative perception of architecture.
South facade oriented to the panoramic harbour basin. Between anodised sidewalls glass fronted balconies are host to the varying daily compositions of sun louvers. Balcony depths increase at lower levels, producing, when louvers conspire to a 100% closure, a curtain-like cascade. BOLLES+WILSON occupy the upper two floors of No.16. The adjoining No.14 is also a BOLLES+WILSON design.
Cranes and harbour life reflected in the glazed south facade. A rooftop Studio Pavilion above the specified 19 m parapet is clad on all surfaces in folded zinc panels.
An 80–120 cm distancing of sun louvers from the actual facade creates with 100% closure a spectacular virtual ‘between space’, like the Japanese concept of ‘Ma’, neither inside nor outside. Raised sun louvers disappear behind balcony fronts.
The attentive viewer will discover a 3 cm high dot-dash inscription on the lower edge of each balcony, the work of the Dutch artist Milou van Ham. Retired 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
A 22 m deep plan organised on the ‘loft principle’, empty decks, one or two units per floor, a wide range of possible interior layouts. Service boxes nestle on the flank walls. A third access box attaches itself asymmetrically to the street facade.
