Housing at St. Sebastian Church in Münster, Germany by BOLLES+WILSON

Article source: 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.

Image Courtesy © Roman Mensing

• Architects: BOLLES+WILSON (Prof. Julia Bolles-Wilson, Peter Wilson)
• Project: Housing at St. Sebastian Church
• Location: Hammer Straße 131-135, 48153 Münster, Deutschland, Germany
• Photography: Peter Wilson, Roman Mensing
• Client: Wohn+Stadtbau GmbH
• Construction Supervision: Klaus Kuchenbuch
  
• Project Leader: Christoph Lammers
• Building Costs: 7.7 Mio Euro
  

Image Courtesy © Roman Mensing

• Gross Floor Area: 7.154 m2
  
• Volume: 25 publicly funded rented apartment, 28 condominiums, care station according to „Bielefelder Modell“
  
• Planning: October 2012 – September 2014
  
• Realisation: December 2013 – December 2015
  
• Competition: 2009, 1st prize

Image Courtesy © Roman Mensing

Image Courtesy © Peter Wilson

Now phase 2 is 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 owneroccupied 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.

Image Courtesy © Roman Mensing

Image Courtesy © Roman Mensing

Only kitchen and bathroom windows are allowed to receive traffic noise; living rooms and balkonies 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.

Image Courtesy © Roman Mensing

Image Courtesy © Peter Wilson

Image Courtesy © Peter Wilson

Image Courtesy © BOLLES+WILSON

Image Courtesy © BOLLES+WILSON

Image Courtesy © BOLLES+WILSON

Image Courtesy © BOLLES+WILSON

Image Courtesy © BOLLES+WILSON

Tags: Germany, Münster

Categories: Church, House, Housing Development, Residential

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