status: completed
program: conversion of a department store into apartments and offices
location: Grabenstraße 38, 52249 Eschweiler
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Eveline Jürgens, Thomas Schneider
net floor area: 1.465 m²
cost: 1.200.000 €
client: Anna Maria und Andrea Breuer, Cologne
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
HVACR: energieplan, Cologne
date: June 2006

Eschweiler Architekturpreis 2007
BDA Preis Aachen 2007
Architekturpreis NRW Auszeichnung 2007
NRW wohnt! Wohnen an ungewöhnlichen Orten Preis 2008
Deutscher Bauherrenpreis 2009
BDA Preis Nike für besonderes soziales Engagement, Shortlist

After converting the 1950's department store into a modern residential and commercial building the only remaining retail spaces were located on the ground floor. The first floor is home to a public recreational room where children whose parents are shopping can be cared for by senior citizens; this space can also be reconfigured to form an office or a surgery. The target groups for the two residential floors are elderly and handicapped people who live in the city and wish to enjoy the advantages of unassisted living.

In the second and third floors there are eight apartments in all, which can be used individually or as a residential cooperative. In order to retain the openness of the former department store, the floor plans are divided only by the addition of core sanitary modules and moveable wall elements. Each apartment has a fully-glazed inner courtyard. The composite thermal insulation system, necessary to keep energy levels low, includes a newly developed light-plaster, which responds to sunlight with the aid of inset glass beads.

status: competition
program: housing
location: Erfurt
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Malte Wilms, Alina Uhlenbrock
client: KoWo Erfurt
date: February 2018

In the historic garden city, the residential courtyard is the spatial image used: buildings enclose a common space as a garden. In reference to this spatial image of social togetherness, a differentiated courtyard structure is created in Erfurt: individual buildings stand at the edge of the plot, leaving a common center free. The existing link between the Muskauer Platz neighborhood and the Gera floodplain is not cut off by the courtyard structure, but spatially charged. The openings between form transitions, from the residential area through the garden courtyard and into the Gera floodplain. The threshold spaces reference the gates of the historic garden city: four for foot and bike, one for foot, bike car, and fire brigade. In keeping with the courtyard type, all buildings are accessed from the garden, with additional entrances from the outside to avoid creating a backside.

The communal garden of approx. 3500 m² is used as a meeting point, offering not only a place to relax but also the opportunity to garden and harvest. The loose grove of fruit trees and the flowering meadows create a free, serene atmosphere. A garden house near the raised beds and the lawn creates a spatial anchor point, providing space for garden tools and movable furniture. Here, vegetables are cleaned, honey is extracted and juice is pressed together in autumn. The chosen plants attract insects and animals, thus reinforcing the character of the large, shared garden: consciously different from floodplain and actively cultivated by all 340 residents. 

To fulfill the systematization requirements of a garden city, the design consists of small series-buildings. While the outdoor space is a large form, the buildings are of medium size. In all five houses, the same flat types are grouped together; horizontally and—in the case of the larger ones, vertically—thus creating maximum repetition in the buildings. The garden houses are designed contextually; developed from the site, each with its own garden interpretation. The entire complex forms an encyclopedia of garden types and corresponding dwellings. The black pine house looks out into the forest and forms the main gateway to the courtyard. Bikes and cars are parked under the house, while the apartments above take on the quality of tree houses floating above the garden. To the North, staggered row houses feature extroverted gardens facing onto the floodplain, exemplifying private garden life. The conservatory house celebrates communal spaces with a framed roof terrace and a double facade. This envelope creates a buffer where exotic plants can grow year-round. The courtyard houses have the most radical reference to the garden, with living rooms at ground level, opening onto the introverted courtyard. Finally, the flower house crowns the yard. It is designed as a large cluster house of connectable individual flats, all with views into the park. The communal roof garden makes it a green beacon, while at the ground floor, a kiosk serves the park ice cream and lemonade.

status: completed
program: conversion and extension of a single-family house
location: Hürth
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Wiebke Schlüter, Christiane Schmidt
structural engineer: Fritz Münster, Frechen
clients: Sirit and Dirk Breuer
area:136 m² plus 37 m² attic
costs: 230.000 €
completion: May 2012

LBS-Preis Das Goldene Haus 2013
Houses of the Year 2013, Shortlist
Kölner Architekturpreis 2014
Architekturpreis NRW 2015
BDA-Architekturpreis Nike 2016

After the purchase of a small settler’s house from the 1950s, there was not much money left for a young family to build themselves a home. The decision was therefore made to refurbish and extend the existing house rather than rebuild it, saving not only money but also the material and energy conserved in the existing structure. The settler’s house is treated as raw structure into which the new is fitted, tuning up the typology, energy use, and accessibility of the house.

The suburban house—its spatial qualities having blurred, its references to history and context gone dim—is brought back to its origins and transformed into architecture. The three stories of the house are differentiated and formed through three different spatial concepts: A lengthwise directed living space on the ground floor, separate rooms circulating around a central access area on the first floor, and an open space concept in the attic.

The load-bearing walls are retained, while the different spatial concepts are introduced into the structure. The new lengthwise directed rooms on the ground floor connect front yard and garden, through the living space. Spacious double doors in the cross-direction link the new terraces on the sides of the house to both living room and kitchen. The new staircase is relocated on the outside of the house, connecting ground and first floor without disrupting the open character of the living-space. The four rooms of the first floor become individual characters—morning, day, evening and the north/garden room—through single windows, all facing a different direction. The attic bares the possibility of being buildout into an open space bedroom, arranged around a well-positioned bath box.

The small house stays small. It grows in length by 2.20m and in space from 118 to 152 m². The extension rests on the foundations of the former terraces and is built in a light steel construction fitted with wooden walls. The new, insulated rafter-roof connects both parts of the house. The outside walls of the existing structure are insulated and plastered. While the different constructions and materials differentiate the new and the old are inside and out, the overall coloring of the walls keeps this effect subtle.

status: completed
program: bike shop
location: Severinstraße 49, Cologne
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Christian Kühnle
costs: 50.000 €
net floor area: 105 m²
completion: October 2018

Verzinkerpreis 2019, honorable mention: sustainability 

The staub&teer bike shop in Cologne is a sustainable project. The salesroom for gravel bikes and accessories of a Cologne bike factory had a fixed budget of €50,000 for 100 m² of space. For this, the complete drywall construction, the electrical, lighting and sanitary installations, painting work and the sales equipment were to be carried out. The shop - perfectly located in the Roman Cardo street - had no spatial or atmospheric qualities, so only a strong overhaul of the space would make the shop a place of commerce.

The spatial or atmospheric upgrading of the room is achieved by installing a construction system from an alien context - a ready-made. The galvanized EURO formwork construction system serves as a wall, room divider, paneling, door, counter and shelf, and can be deconstructed without leaving any residue. The differently joined modular elements, fixed by means of clamps, form a sequence of rooms: the vestibule, the counter space, the cabinet of curiosities and the bicycle gallery are lined up, one after another.

The construction system was built by the shop operators themselves in 5 days, and fulfills the individual functions through various modifications. Perforated or galvanized steel sheets are set with magnets; flush with the outside as a presentation surface or flush with the inside as shelf backing. As bicycle holders, bent anchor rods were inserted into the anchor nuts inherent in the system. As product holders, stock insert-able hooks were inserted into the perforated panels. The universal formwork, purchased for 30.000 €, required no modification, and can thus be resold after a possible dismantling.

Since opening, the bike shop has become a social meeting place—given its universality and the energy of the operators—serving this role in addition to that of a sales room: https://www.instagram.com/staubundteer/

status: competition. 3rd prize
program: housing
location: Baakenhafen, HafenCity, Hamburg
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Julia Kaulen, Alina Uhlenbrock
client: Hamburger Wohnen eG & building cooperative „AMIGO“
date: August 2019

The transformation of the ‘hafen’ (harbor) into HafenCity is a challenge. Where once large-scale mono-functionality of harbor basins, crane facilities and quay sheds dominated, a small-scale mixed quarter is now emerging. This project seeks to weave these strands—of place, identity, function, construction, space and material—together. The industrial grandeur remains tangible; the openness of the formerly mono-functional large remains present in the small-scale mixed.

This begins with the structure of the building, a hybrid of skeleton and load-bearing bulkhead construction. This three-nave masonry pier structure is the unifying essence of the building, binding together space, material and façade. Its neutral spatial structure enables the construction of 30 different flat types with specific requirements for divisibility, switch-ability and, in some cases, very determinate dimensions. Changes in family or occupant structure throughout the entire house can thus be accommodated without structural interference. Thanks to short spans, composite timber ceilings and prefabricated elements are possible, reducing carbon-hungry materials and allowing for easy re- and deconstruction. On the facades, the structure is reinterpreted as functional ornamentation. This restrained narrative is contextual: it is a masonry building on the harbor. Was there before? Is it a converted warehouse building? The visible structure, the ordinariness of living and its prominent location make for a quietly peculiar building.

The terp-formed pedestal facing the Versmannstraße and the promenade along the wharf below result in the building’s two ground floors. The plan development follows, subtly differentiating the building into two volumes: an L-shaped structure—eight stories to the North and five to the South—sits atop the terp, while a four-story cube faces onto the promenade. Offset by half a story, but with an aligned parapet, they form a split-level building which is nevertheless legible as an independent body; first cut in, then exposed. The upper ground floor is hidden from the street by its neighbor—the communal entrance courtyard is reached through a passage—while the lower ground floor perforates the terp wall modestly, connecting it with the promenade. Here the 1,5-floor high ‘Quarter-pipe’ communal space is accessible from both sides, constituting the first of the buildings various communal spaces. Others include a play place at ground level, a communal kitchen/terrace and multiple roof gardens. These spaces, the two volumes, and the apartments themselves are united through a single external stair: the social heart of the building. The staircase creates an address and an identity, offering easy ascent through the split levels, casual interactions, and —from the 4th floor upwards—views onto the Hamburg harbor.

status: urban design workshop, 1st prize
program: multi-use: school, kindergarten, workshops, community areas, housing, offices, public open spaces
location: Cologne
team BeL: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Laura Fuchs, Amelie Bimberg, Jonas Läufer, Mariel Kaiser-Crompton, Jakob Wolters
team Studio Vulkan: Robin Winogrond, Helen Yu
project development: Prof. Dr. Guido Spars
client: City of Cologne
date: July 2017

South of Kalk’s main street is a place where large empty spaces lie half asleep. ‘Die Hallen Kalk’ (The Kalk Halls) are a series of very large, monumental, industrial spaces which—with little exception—have long remained closed to the public.

This is about to change: the industrial halls will become communal halls; the site will be mixed in with the street. To create a diversity of urban spaces, a diversity of strategies is applied. These strategies emerge from the qualities of the existing structure itself, and therefore—while diverse—are united in maintaining the original character of the Halls. The existing usages thus generate a sophisticated structure for implementing the new usages.

The Kalk halls under 3,500 m² each receive distinct uses: a market hall, school hall, festival hall, studio hall, dance hall, craftsmen's hall, adventure hall, play hall, BMX park and residential courtyard. The juxtaposition of these large units creates a mesh of uses which give the surrounding spaces an urban liveliness. The larger spaces—up to 10,000 m²—are more ambiguous. Here, the different uses lie over and within each other, staggered or simultaneous, fostering unexpected human interactions. Through removal of the skylight glazing, Hall 70 is transformed into a large plaza. Here the schoolyard, sports areas, kindergarten, planting area, greenhouse and refectory/restaurant mingle to form an impressive and multi-layered space. The unique blend of spatial definition and open sky, combined with its sheer size, makes Hall 70 into a significant Kalk landmark. Architectural sublimity and cultural openness constitute here a new cornerstone for a developing neighborhood.

status: competition
program: museum, hostel
location: St. Pauli, Hamburg
team BeL: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Christiane Schmidt, Alia Mortada, Julia Kaulen, Michel Kleinbrahm, Jonas Läufer, Wolfgang Zeh
team NL: Kamiel Klaasse, Kirsten Hüsig, Laura Riano Lopez, Pieter Bannenberg, Guilia Pastore, Jasna Kajevic
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
client: Bayerische Hausbau GmbH & Co. KG., Bezirksamt Hamburg Mitte
date: August 2016

The small Plot 2 features a compact, interconnected structure of communal cultural uses. Thus, the complex relationships of opening, demarcation, insight and separation give form to this urban building block. On Spielbudenplatz stands the small museum with a massive façade, crowned by a skate park. Its glass pedestal contains a café and a club, which extends into the basement. From here, a staircase connects the clubs concert space with the townhouse-style hostel next door.

The museum façade acts as a sound barrier, protecting the alley behind and the building itself from the noise of Spielbudenplatz. Operable windows are hidden in the trapezoids of the soundproof wall, and skylights are concealed in the volcanoes of the skate park. A bridge spans the alley, connecting the skate park to the adjacent 3D building of Plot 1. Here skaters spend the afternoon in the evening sun, enjoying the view over the Reeperbahn while a service entrance from the hostel supplies drinks.

The club has two function rooms: a day club on the level of Spielbudenplatz with a stage in the shop window and a subterranean club with a basilica-like layout under the alley. You descend into the club via a central staircase - with cloakroom and box office in what would be the organ loft. From the club, a service staircase leads up to the hostel, where visiting performers can lodge. The hostel is a narrow, eight-story townhouse on the alley with three small double rooms and a slightly larger private room on each floor. The rooms face the alley, each with a façade basket for airing clothes and storing travellers' belongings. A two-story restaurant, which also serves as the reception, opens onto the alley. Here, guests can spend their days and evenings before ascending to their rooms.

status: urban design competition
program: housing, working
location: Düsseldorf
team BeL: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Laura Fuchs, Amelie Bimberg, Leonard Palm, Jonas Läufer
team NL: Kamiel Klaasse, Mark Kanters, Linda Consiglieri
client: Metro Group
date: October 2017

status: completed
program: production plant
location: Slubice, Poland
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Eveline Jürgens
net floor area: 2069 m²
net volume: 9310 m³
cost: 1.200.000 €
client: FRABA Sp. z o.o, Slubice, Poland
structural engineering and site supervision: ARUP Warzaw

Balthasar Neumann Preis 2007 shortlist

As a non-hierarchical, uniformed, infinite and flexible space FRABA Sp. z o.o. is a metageneric production plant. FRABA produces electronic components for the automation industry in a non-automated manufacturing process. The products are hand assembled in small series. The assembly consists of tables, shelves and trolleys.

On a tight gross budget of 580€/m2 a prototype plant for future expansions around the globe is developed. The design reacts to location specific construction and logistic conditions for each site.

In Poland there is a sufficient supply of timber at considerable low costs compared to the conventional steel structure. With a global steel market overheated by Chinese demand and the affordable labour costs in Poland, a lightweight timber structure becomes reasonable.

The structural system consists of a 52m diameter 60°solid web beam grid. It rests on 19 17cm diameter stressed steel tube columns with a clear span of 9,70m. The shell is made of prefabricated insulated plywood elements, 14% of the roof is covered with triangular skylight domes. The top surface is aluminium coated bituminous roofing membrane. Gross floor area is 2069 m2 with an overall clearance of 4,5m. The building has mechanical and conditioned ventilation, Skylights are specifically designed for perfect daylight assembly conditions and avoid heat gains during the summer.

The circle is an optimized box. In comparison to a rectangular building of the same volume it has less surface, which in addition to saving energy, reduces construction material by up to 13%. The triangular grid minimizes the constructive complexity while offering a maximum of possible layout variations. The dimension of the triangular grid is adapted to the needs of the company; optimized for the client's production process as well as for possible future uses.

status: completed
program: coffee roastery
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Wolfgang Zeh
brand design: nondesign, Jörg Waschat
cost: 150.000,- €
net floor area: 185 m²
completion: July 2010

AIT-Award 2012

The van Dyck roasting plant is located at Körnerstraße 43 in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, a district characterized by its development during the industrial revolution. Its dense, orthogonal street network is lined by Rhenish three-window houses. Workers and petty bourgeois lived here, while in the block interiors, artisanal businesses and companies such as Audi, 4711, Helios, Herbrand and the chocolate factory Kwatta maintained production facilities. Since the Second World War, many immigrant workers moved to neighborhood, and recent development has been characterized by gentrification. While Ehrenfeld's industrial and artisanal importance is steadily declining, the gastronomic offer is steadily growing.

The design concept of the newly founded coffee roastery Van Dyck hearkens back to the industrial founding of the neighborhood without nostalgia. The technical production processes of a coffee roaster become the central design element; the experience of production becomes a gastronomic idea. With the roasting machine as a tabernacle in the visual axis of the room and the packing table serving as connecting element to the shop window, the guests participate intensively in the production of the coffee. The visit becomes a tasting; coffee and food are served at the packing table. The privilege of participating in the roasters' lunch break—behind the scenes of a legendary production plant—determines the perception of van Dyck.

An automotive enthusiast's greatest happiness is a visit to the "hallowed halls," the production facilities of his beloved make. Coffee lovers worldwide can now enjoy daily van Dyck coffee on Körnerstrasse.

status: in progress
program: housing
location: St. Pauli, Hamburg
team BeL: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Christiane Schmidt, Alia Mortada, Julia Kaulen, Michel Kleinbrahm, Jonas Läufer, Wolfgang Zeh
team NL: Kamiel Klaasse, Kirsten Hüsig, Laura Riano Lopez, Pieter Bannenberg, Guilia Pastore, Jasna Kajevic
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
client: Bayerische Hausbau GmbH & Co. KG., Bezirksamt Hamburg Mitte
date: August 2016

Plot 3 is composed of three residential buildings: the ‘Liège’ tower, the ‘Gradient’ building, and the Zigzag house. Each has access to the communal courtyard and features a public or communal roof function. Most prominent of these is the basketball court, which crowns the gradient building. Accessed by a public staircase between the Liege tower and the gradient building, it is connected by a setback at the sixth floor of the tower to ‘Park Fiction 2.0’ and the rooftop restaurant of Plot 1, completing a network of public roof spaces.  

The 11-storey Liege tower is a small high-rise building; it lives from the flats' view of the city. Each floor has four units, oriented to one side, with additional sunlight and views provided by its characteristic projecting winter gardens, which function as balcony in the summer and additional room in the winter. At ground level, Liège is set back from the street, creating a small square. The 24-hour shop here has a large canopy reminiscent of the old Esso petrol station. The square preludes the ascent upwards to the public roofs, while the half-height setback at the 6^th floor enables the connection of basketball court and Park Fiction 2.0. At this junction a large penthouse, a common room for indoor activities or a superintendent office can be created

The Gradient building features flats of different sizes, accessed via arcade. The flats get progressively larger towards the corner, creating a surreal perspective effect; a kind of trompe-l'oeil. The motto is not ‘one size fits all,’ but ‘one size for everyone.’ To exploit natural light, the largest flat inhabits the corner, while the arcade is pushed back from the East façade, creating a private threshold and balconies. To the West, mini balconies enjoy evening sun over Taubenstraße and foster interaction with the street.

With a communal children's play area on the roof, the zigzag house completes the ensemble. It cleverly exploits spacing to look in all directions. It is a three-story building with a twisted floor plan; the flats have qualities that are otherwise only possible in a free-standing building. They are designed to be open to different occupancies: residents can live or sleep facing the Kastanienallee as well as the street. The balconies and loggias provide deep streetscapes or catch the western sun on the courtyard side.

status: competition
program: housing, workshops, retail
location: Ehrenfeld, Cologne
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Laura Fuchs, Mariel Kaiser-Crompton, David Leber, Malte Wilms
client: Aurelis Real Estate
date: November 2017

The neighborhood of Ehrenfeld, with its characteristic mixture of small-scale residential/mixed-use development and large-scale industrial areas, is developing to serve future needs. However, in today’s economy, continuing the small-scale development of the area is just as impossible as preserving fragments of the site’s former freight depot. The project thus places a special demand on the architecture for the creation of a site-specific identity: the uniqueness of the place must not be lost in anonymity. The site, with topography rising toward the South, is traversed lengthwise by three axes: a neighborhood access road to the North, a bike-pedestrian through-way, and a green corridor sloping down from the train tracks to the South. Neighborhood alleyways connect these axes cross-wise, allowing for a central residential courtyard, while the zoning plan calls for the integration of commercial uses along the Northern neighborhood street.

These conditions—the interaction of different social spaces, topography, required noise protection, and planned building volumes—call for a mixture of building typologies to compliment the various open spaces and maintain the mixed-scale character of the neighborhood. Buildings A, B and C are therefore not only different from one another, but are further subdivided to finely tune relationships between public, semi-public and private areas.

Along the neighborhood street in the north, the buildings are arranged directly adjacent to the street space, creating a threshold-free connection to the public space. The neighborhood alleys to the east and west are activated by the entrances to the residential units of Buildings A and B, while low-threshold front areas of the ground floor flats create a transition from the public to the private sphere. The topography creates clearly defined transitions to the flat inner courtyard, which sits 1,5m above the ground-floor units to the North and West. Building B solves this challenge with a plinth, —at about the same level as the courtyard—accessible from the North via a staircase and from the South at ground level. Building A, on the other hand, mediates the height distinction through a series of double and split level units, all containing internal stairs. This strategy is picked up by building C, which is entered directly from the pedestrian and bicycle path, and features private gardens arranged another 1,5m up green slope to the South.

The ensemble is bound together by a canon of industrial façade materials and the central courtyard, the social heart of the area. With direct access for all residents, a gradation of secondary public thoroughfares and semi-public inner block areas, it invites communal use. Elevated off the street and lightly shielded from the bike path by trees, the courtyard features a water-bound sand surface, making it an explicitly informal grandchild to the open industrial yards of the past. The yard is protected from the sound of passing trains by the high wall of building C, while the terraces of buildings A and plinth of building B are just high enough to provide the yard with informal seating. The three buildings—with their ample balconies, roof gardens and arcades—work together, forming a protected, lively atmosphere

status: completed
program: organic farm with barn, stables, farmstead and farm shop
location: Seevetal
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Klaus Overmeyer, Maike Basista, Matthias Hoffmann, Luc Knödler, Philipp Schläger, Christiane Schmidt, Wolfgang Zeh
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
area: 2000 m², 10 ha
clients: Kerstin & Uli Overmeyer, Seevetal
costs: 2.000.000 €
completion: March 2014

Agricultural engineers Ulrich and Kerstin Overmeyer have built a new biodynamic farm with a farm store, residential building, stable and barn on a ten-hectare plot in Emmelndorf. In front of the organic market garden on Emmelndorfer Straße, a large scattered fruit meadow and a wetland biotope have been created. "We want to make primary production tangible and make shopping a direct sensory experience," says Kerstin Overmeyer, explaining the concept. "We want to make sustainable management in harmony with nature tangible. Anyone who comes to us should immediately be immersed in our agriculture," adds her husband Uli Overmeyer.

The courtyard is composed by individual volumes, all with views of the garden landscape. The large volumes are constructed of timber and are themselves composed of smaller volumes with thresholds, intermediate and partial spaces that take up references to the neighboring buildings. The overall structure of Gärtnerhof becomes smaller and larger simultaniously. In the patchwork of facades there are different veneers made of re-used bricks. The spaces all communicate with one another across the yard; all annexable according to the seasonal and momentary needs of the residents and operators.

The Gärtnerhof is a cross between a garden and a farm; a charged island in the landscape. The garden is compaction, in the yard the garden experience is opened up and thus further condensed; it is a space of rural conjestion. The farm is so compact that life and work are immediately perceptible, that the operational processes are optimized. The farm has a closed energy cycle. Animals, houses, equipment, fruit, vegetables and people coexist in a dynamic, cultivated order, to the rhythm of the seasons, in accord with the laws of nature.

status: urban design competition
program: multi-use community and cultural centre
location: Sindelfingen
team BeL: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Amelie Kulassek, Alina Uhlenbrock, Tobias Schwuchow
team Molestina: Juan Pablo Molestina, Steffen Schmidt, Julia Deventer
team grüngrau: Thomas Fenner, Binyang Xie
client: City of Sindelfingen
date: April 2022

Diagrammatically formulated, this solitaire bundles the entire interior program along Mercedes Street and raises it, thus obtaining a coherent, permeable green space which connects all adjacent streets. This minimizes pavement and maximizes potential areas for vegetation and social interaction. The building is a 38.5m high and 25.4m deep, functional hybrid. It is set back towards Mercedesstraße, tangent to the property line at Gartenstraße and at Poststraße it keeps maximum distance to the opposite development; a respectful neighbour. As a high point, the building is clearly perceptible from every side due to its precise positioning, without triggering conflicts with the buildings opposite. On the contrary, it creates new urban contexts and gives expression to its public purpose.
 
The entire area lies at the center of a "shared space" formed by the surrounding streets of Mercedesstrasse/Gartenstrasse/Unter Torgasse and Poststrasse. The boundaries of this urban space are fluid, pedestrians and cyclists enjoy absolute priority, and the speed of all vehicles is reduced to a minimum.
 
The 5.8m high first floor of the 11-storey structure has a special significance. Its structural footprint is minimal and its height maximal to allow permeability in all directions. Each side forms special subspaces; the quiet entrance hall of the apartments is located on Poststrasse, while the more public Mercedesstraße is lined by a colonnade with accompanying trees. Here, tables of the café of the Kultur- und Bürger*innenzentrum can be placed in the morning sun. This space leads southwards into the urban loggia, where a cantilever created by the sloped seating of the civic hall above forms a public, covered outdoor space. In addition to its function as the entrance area of the cultural and civic centre, this space doubles as a lively forum for cultural and social activities at the intersection of Mercedesstrasse and Gartenstrasse. To the West, between the building and Unterer Torgasse, the public green space provides shade, calm and room to relax.

status: contribution to "Building Upon"
program: fictional extension of an existing cafe by John Körmeling
location: Breda, Netherlands
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Matthias Hoffmann
client: Architectura et Amicitia (Aeta)
date: June 2015

T'Huis in Breda by John Körmeling is a beautiful building. It is a pavilion in the park, largely constructed of glass with very delicate profiles and a very thin roof. You can enjoy coffee or tea on the terrace shaded by marquees. The marquees are red - like the terrace and the furniture, the artist uses a striking contrast; the park becomes greener seen from the red and thus more beautiful. T'Huis is proportioned using a golden ratio in ground plan and elevation. It is labeled with fluorescent letters, presenting the things offered here: ice cream, coffee, tea, sausage, cake and french fries.

The extension of T'Huis deals with the delicateness of the building. Any extension appears to be rude regarding the entity of the building's design. We know so many tea pavilions full of features: patio heaters or terrace glazing keeping smokers warm in winter; attached party tents opening after 5 o'clock for night use. Our extension also improves the functionality of the tea pavilion. It provides a small canopy and an additional door. The existing pavilion's toilet can now be used before or after the opening times of T'Huis. The door separating the cafè from the toilets is sealed. Now a machine on the outside of the pavilion grants the entrance. The canopy is tall so that it is visible all around the park and labelled with the service (WC) found here.

status: completed
program: self-build housing
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Christiane Schmidt, Wolfgang Zeh, Leonard Wertgen, Fréderic Schnee
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
HVACR: Energie und Technik, Sittensen
client: Primus AG
gross floor area: 1.352 m²
cost: 1.200.000 €, 830 €/m² BGF
completion: March 2013

Deutscher Architekturpreis 2013, honorable mention
Universal Design Award 2013 , Universal Design Consumer Favorite 2013

construction manual for settlers
>>> DOWNLOAD HERE

Grundbau und Siedler explores how lower income groups can become home owners. This project was originally developed in the framework of the IBA Hamburg 2013 for the urban district of Wilhelmsburg. The dominant typology in this area is the allotment garden hut, in the 1970s large social housing complexes were also erected there. Although the theme of these developments was "urbanity through density", they are neither densely built nor do they succeed in producing any sense of urbanity.

The project by BeL stretches the typology of the hut to multi-storey housing – a skeleton provides the basic frame, its different stories can be individually filled out, both spatially and over a period of time, by the residents themselves employing self-build methods. The future home-owners buy a package consisting of a plot within a basic, concrete-built skeleton, all the building materials needed to develop their plot, and a handbook giving detailed instructions on all the steps necessary for the development work.

In warmer climatic zones Le Corbusier's Domino House principle from 1914 has proved its value as a successful construction system for informal housing developments. Aashwa´i in Cairo, Polykatoikia in Athens, Gececondu in Istanbul, and Favela in Sao Paulo confirm the superiority of the Domino construction principle – and not just from the viewpoint of costs. It is a shelf that provides ideal conditions for a mix of functions; a surplus of space creates a flexible basis to be appropriated by future extensions, conversions and adaptations. The open basic structure allows flexibility over a long period of time.

Applying the Domino principle in Germany today requires specialized materials and details in order to satisfy the demands made by highly developed post-industrial societies regarding comfort, economy and ecology. The Grundbau or skeleton has a single staircase serving three units on each floor, the structure is five-storeys high and offers twelve sites for settlers. Each of the upper four stories has three units, whereas the ground floor contains the settlers' private workshops, car parking spaces, the public utilities connection room and the approach to the open staircase.

The settlers acquire a complete kit of building components to erect a typical settler's house. This kit contains all the construction material. A detailed handbook describes the steps that they can carry out themselves, as well as indicating those areas of work that must be approved by a specialist. The organization of the floor plans is independent of the load-bearing structure and the neighboring stories. All versions of the typical floor plan in the settlers' kit address different housing needs (the number of persons, lifestyle etc.) and changes of function over time (a growing family, the advent of old age, change of user). A set of functionally neutral spaces is offered with an abundant number of doors. Consequently, the users can employ whatever function they wish. All the rooms are connected to each other; each room has openings to its neighbors. The large number of doors allows the rooms to be grouped as required. For instance: one family may want a large bathroom with a view, whereas another may use this room as a child's bedroom. Each dwelling has two service shafts that are positioned at the intersection of the partition walls and can serve three rooms.

The settlers decide what the rooms will be used for. Flexibility results from use and not through adaptation. Functionally indeterminate spaces in a floor plan without corridors require the settlers to interpret and conquer their own space. In the 1:50 scale configuration model (contained in the building kit) the settlers can examine which ways of using the spaces work best for them. Those who wish so can ignore the recommendations and the material offered in the building kit and can improvise. Settlers can reject the guidelines within their own plot, everyone has the right to make their own mistakes and improvements. The Grundbau contains everything needed to build and operate a unit; the settlers can use the workshop spaces on the ground floor from day one and can run their own construction site from there. The Grundbau has railings making scaffolding unnecessary, the settlers can carry out their work from the 70-cm wide strip of balcony.

status: urban design competition
program: multi-use fabrication and cultural complex
location: Aachen
team BeL: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Christian Kühnle, Alina Uhlenbrock, Finn Marcelli
team studio erde: Tim Krüger, Marcel Tröger, Violeta Burckhardt
client: City of Aachen
date: July 2023

The four large halls currently stand on the large gravel car park of the future Liebig Höfe. These halls alone do not succeed in forming an ensemble. If you enter one of the halls, this changes; the rooms have a strong character and the atmosphere is formed by the architecture. The placement of two further strong forms changes the cohesion of the Liebig Höfe: the six commercial buildings now build a clear ensemble which stands on a condensed, undulating ground-plane. From the centre of the ensemble, one sees all the buildings in their own way. The new buildings are positioned and designed such that their façades face the large open space in the middle, forming entrance spaces on each side. The Liebig Höfe maintains the character of an ensemble programmatically with a diverse mixture of uses. The two new buildings strengthen the productive everyday life of the area, complementing the existing commercial and leisure uses throughout the week and during the day. The Liebig Höfe will become a diverse, inclusive, low-threshold, ecologically high-quality, productive and lively neighbourhood.

status: competition
program: permaculture farm, farm shop, hotel, lecture rooms, co-working, office, restaurants, workshops, apartments, community housing, gardens
location: Türnich
team BeL: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Michel Kleinbrahm, Jakob Wolters
team baukuh: Pier Paolo Tamburelli, Andrea Zanderigo, Paula Frasch, Chiara Catapano
team smeets: Jan Peter Stiller
client: city of Kerpen, Count and family of Hoensbroech
date: February 2017

Schloss Türnich is a unique spatial structure made from architectural and landscape elements. Together, they form a system of particular pieces: the castle, the moat, the French garden, the English landscape park, the mill, the forrest, the avenue and the agricultural land. The elements are not necessarily connected to each other and old connections are often interrupted by new elements.

This generous distribution of partially disjointed scenes - a recurring phenomenon throughout the history of the castle - is the main feature of the situation. The changes in the castle complex should therefore do justice to the special nature of the place. The connection between the castle, the village and the surrounding agricultural land should be achieved subtly via indirect connections; maintaining the autonomy of the subspaces and underlining their special atmospheres.

status: urban planning competition, 3rd prize
program: housing, retail, public open spaces
location: Bergedorf-West, Hamburg
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Katharina Volgger, Alina Uhlenbrock, Tessa Gaunt, Emmet Elliott
client: City of Hamburg
date: January 2021

Bergedorf West gets a new square and an old park. Life in the settlement in the southeast of Hamburg becomes more beautiful, articulated and charged with meaning through the two urban spaces. The two open spaces are formed by an ensemble of volumes, which balance the juxtaposition of their contrasting qualities.

The previous Werner-Neben-Platz is in the wrong place - on the edge of the urban activity. It thus becomes Werner-Neben-Park, its paving is removed and reshaped into a sand-grass-shrub landscape. Now the water can seep away here; one sits in the midst of the beautiful old trees, the children play in their shade. The house in the Werner Neben-Park is the new district center. It is an intensive prelude to the beginning of the green corridor through Bergedorf West, which connects all the social facilities of the district. The Fritz-Manke-Weg passes through here, and the programs are connected via the open space.

The new Werner-Neben-Platz is moved 60m to the South, where it remains car-free, bundling all necessities and movement of daily life. Staking out a square is a fundamental act of founding a city. The spatial sequence of movement through the district begins and ends here in a powerful dramaturgy: Exit from the S-Bahn - view into the urban landscape - then with the bridge over the Friedrich-Frank-Bogen, through the Billehochhaus and onto the square. One arrives here on the first floor, greeted with a broad overview of the plaza. The space is framed by an ensemble of 5(.5) volumes: a loggia/city balcony attached to the to the identity-creating Billehochhaus on the long South side, the Tennisterrassen in the West, Haus Janus in the North, and the Seniorenturm and Haus für Mobile in the East.

status: urban planning study
program: housing, landscape, public open spaces, kindergarten, school, farming
location: Oejendorf, Hamburg
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Alina Uhlenbrock, Emmet Elliott, Tessa Gaunt, Leander Lentner
nature conservation and landscape planner: Planungemeinschaft Marienau, Bleckede
traffic planner: ARGUS Stadt und Verkehr Partnerschaft mbB, Hamburg
client: City of Hamburg
date: January 2020 - January 2023

The New Garden City Öjendorf is not a garden city, but a landscape city.

The space of fields framed with hedgerows, leading in gentle topography through oak avenues to the Öjendorf cemetery and Lake Öjendorf, contrasts in its original, beautiful, man-made, landscape character with the surrounding settlement space. The design attempts to create a symbiosis of landscape and development and to carefully refine the site.

The development is interpreted as a system of landscape halls that are habitats for people, animals and plants. A context for people is established via enfilades, while the thick floral walls form the habitat for animals. 

The field communities are developed as courtyard variants in relation to the landscape. The character of each ensemble is developed for the specific character of its field. A minimally invasive circulation system ties the twelve courtyard communities together, while each remains open to the landscape. Each flat, therefore, has views of the ecologically dense field edge. City and landscape city combine in view and movement.

The landscape city is the work of many. It relies on the commitment of its residents - in the planning, in the self-construction, in the maintenance and in the management. The design is not a final formal image, but a robust framework for living in the landscape.

status: completed
program: conversion of a terrace house
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Wiebke Schlüter, Wolfgang Zeh
net floor area: 150 m²
client: N.N.
cost: 150.000 €
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
date: May 2009

The garden city estate of the Köln-Nippeser Bau- und Spargenossenschaft on Eisenachstrasse is one of the oldest cooperative housing estates in Cologne. Next to the large Nippes railroad repair works, the architect Heinrich Krings built around 60 inexpensive terraced houses for railroad workers' families between 1903 and 1905. The settlement won the gold medal for floor plan design at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. As the last of the settlement houses to retain both street and garden-side facades, House number 38 is now listed for protection. The house suffered the misfortune of a lovelessly executed 90s renovation: three bathrooms were installed, rooms were divided, textured wallpaper and diagonally laid floor tiles covered the simple but robust original materials. By the time the new owners—a family with two children—purchased the house, this renovation had already worn out, but due to very high real estate prices, the remodeling budget was extremely limited.

For the new residents, the three separate units crammed into the existing building were re-integrated with selective interventions. The formerly semi-public stairwell was connected to the adjacent living and dining rooms, the kitchen was relocated to the street side, and the entrance hallway was demolished. A functional wall with integrated storage, work desk and through-way separates the kitchen from the newly created entrance hall. The dining room was given a door to the garden, and a fireplace area connects the dining room to the staircase. On the first floor, the demolition of the bathrooms made it possible to create space for a large living room adjacent to the children's rooms while the master bedroom with dressing room and a large family bathroom inhabit the second floor.

The entire house was remodeled with a dual strategy of brutalization and refinement. The new state is composed of the exposed fragments of all the previous ones: the visible shell of 1903, the framed extension of 1905, first improvements of the 50s, parts of the renovation of the 90s and contemporary interventions. All fragments are connected by a layer of beige paint, graduating their differences. The inset reading nook, fireplace bench, pass-through storage wall and shower niche, complete the programmatic expansion of the house. These new interventions follow the so-called ‘dental filling’ tactic: they fit seamlessly into existing conditions while revealing their independence materially.

status: completed
program: adaptable trade-fair-system
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Adria Daraban, Max Schoeneich, Wolfgang Zeh
gross floor area: 3 - 200 m²
client: FRABA AG
date: 2009 - 2014

Evolving from DIN display system ISO provides improved flexibility, rapid assembly time and minimized payload. Presented on a worldwide campaign the ISO universal system has to comply with numerous international standards. ISO is nomadic architecture, it features lightweight elements, easy to carry and easy to assemble. Traditionally fabric is used to create shelters, ISO deploys a curtain/carpet made of customized injection molded polycarbonate snap-on tiles. ISO is a non-spatial concept. The elements can be applied in an infinite number of configurations on a multiplicity of trade fair lots. The possible organizational patterns are based on rules of proximity. Depending on the specific context the client can choose from a large array of possible set ups.

Iso is an attempt at nothingness. The spatial presence of the individual objects is reduced to the bare structural necessities. In an almost tribal simplicity, illumination is provided by lampposts. Tables and chairs have an intermediate height between chairs and bar stools to allow informal communication.

The grandeur of ISO's delicateness is a remedy to the barren environment of trade fairs. ISO is a satisfactory combination of austerity and pomp.

status: completed
program: single family house
location: Overath
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Sascha Glasl, Eveline Jürgens
net floor area: 200 m²
cost: 250.000 €
client: Jan und Beata Ruppert, Dortmund
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
date: May 2004

www.rationator.org

Overath is a small town on the periphery of Cologne's suburbia. Rationator is a detached house for a family with 3 children.
Sited on a stretched building plot along the bank of the Agger River, the house is threatened by floods up to 2,5 m above ground level. Thus the design anticipates possible flooding with a choice of flood resistant materials and construction techniques.
The clients represent the typical family who dream of their own house, but have a limited budget. Rationator acknowledges this predisposition with a choice of communication strategies and profound typological exercises.

status: competition
architecture: BeL & Büro für Konstruktivismus
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Sandra Bartoli, Silvan Linden, Adria Daraban
client: Regione Autonoma della Sardegna
date: September 2007

Marceddi, Torre Salinas, you click it on the browser and fall on planet Earth from the heights of the stratosphere. Flying in on forests, sea, lagune, zooming into spontaneous trails between groves and fields, unplanned open areas along the coast, hidden camping facilities, scruffy mountains, draught areas, stray animals, rivers, curves of silver, fishes, boulders, dust. The entire island is full of beauty, even in beautiful sad places such as Marceddì, or the desert-like splendour of the lagune in Torre Salinas. From these simple observations and the use of Google Earth we developed the idea to produce new aerial photos of the two places. These aerial images - rather paintings than plans - intend to be new realities, assumptions of a future landscape, parallel to the current situation.

We travel through Sardinia in search of our own modern Arcadia.
Everything starts with the landscape: cultural and natural landscape.
The landscape is Sardinia's asset.
The landscape rather than buildings will serve as a catalyst for identity and urbanization.
The landscape becomes richer: it grows instead of disappearing.
The landscape saturates in its qualities: it becomes greener, bluer, wetter, dryer, thicker, airier, etc.
The consequence is the bonding of foreign and native, work and free time, nature and culture, good and bad.
Tourists and Sardinians live together in the same place: minimal separation and no boundaries
Tourism in a real Sardinia: it's not a theme park. All material comes from the site.
Minimal impact with moderate alterations corresponds to feasible economic principles.

Everything starts with aerial composites of the existing.
A thorough analysis in detail leads to the recognition of the existing qualities.
The image and the landscape are not identical. But once having reworked the image we've already affected the landscape.
The image, and consequently the landscape, is quantifiable.
It is about reaching critical mass to understand the relation of the landscape and its use. (The point when a landscape becomes periphery, a tourist village a sprawled strip, etc.)
Local retouching: all material comes from the site.
The result of the work is a perfect aerial image, we have found Arcadia, an idealized landscape.

status: in progress
program: cooperative housing
location: Neunburg vorm Wald
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser,
Alina Uhlenbrock, Julia Kaulen, Mariel Kaiser-Crompton,
Christian Kühnle, Laura Fuchs
structural engineer: Dr.-Ing. Arne Künstler, Frankfurt
client: 9BÜRGER eG Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft i.G.
date: July 2019

Arising in relation to the landscape, this new ensemble is composed of three parts: house, shed and yard. It is a cooperative living project for people over 50; people who want to begin the next phase of life in a lively and social environment.  

The house consists of 19 living units, a common room with kitchen, a shared bathroom and a guest room for visitors. Opposite is the shed—a large simple roof—for storage and work. Between these two structures is the communal yard. It is a space of movement and unplanned encounters: neighbors pass by, hang out, or repair their bikes; all the action is here.

The building is accessed via a long arcade, ramped to match the topography. The use of standard German accessibility standards is here formalized into a terraced social space and the structural backbone of the building: the residential units are stepped down along the slope of the ramp. The house is likewise staggered in plan, with the different flat sizes arranged according to their size. Facing south towards the arcade, each flat has a glazed, unheated veranda. It serves as a terrace in summer, enlarges the living space in the transitional periods and creates a threshold space between the communal arcade and private living quarters. 

status: competition
program: Czech National Library
location: Prague, Czech Republic
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Eveline Jürgens, Thomas Schneider, Lynn Kukelies
net floor area: 53.826 m²
client: National Library of the Czech Republic, Prague
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
date: September 2006

The building of the New National Library marks the western edge of Letenská plain. Even though building mass is added to the area, the wide and open terrain is preserved as a multifunctional urban space. Corresponding to the monumental dimensions of the urban context, the New National Library rests as a simplistic volume on the extended gravel surface of Letenská plain. Oriented parallel to the open area, the building has a square footprint of 97,20m² based on an 8,10 m square grid. To the north, an open plaza provides the main entrance for pedestrians. To the east, the library café, which also serves as an entrance, features a terrace looking onto the infinite gravel surface of Letenská plain.

The New National Library is a hybrid typology between utilitarian functionality and public grandeur. Sixty percent of the floor area is used solely for storage, with twenty percent of the floor area is open to the public. The presence of 10 million books creates a monumentality by sheer number, similar to baroque libraries, where visitors and employees are completely surrounded by books. With generic typologies such as supermarkets as a model the scheme juxtaposes the programmatic necessities of separating magazine and public spaces with the baroque approach of universal presence. The enormous size and complexity of a National Library reflects into simplistic spatial matrix.

In plan the 97,20 m deep open space is structured by supportive cylinders and voids in the floor. The voids connect spatially to the lower floors, which are mainly used as magazine spaces. The cylinders also provide controlled natural light through circular patios. Four cores contain vertical circulation, fire escapes, public and freight elevators with car capacity. Upper floors have 6,75 m clearance, lower floors 2,33 m. The neutrality of the system allows for a wide array of possible layouts. Essentially the ground floor contains public services, the first floor reading rooms, the second floor administration and public services. Restaurant and auditorium are also on the second floor.

Each upper floor is accompanied by a secondary lower floor (inverted mezzanine) that provides storage space for the public.

status: competition
program: housing
location: Bern
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Mariel Kaiser-Crompton, Laura Fuchs, Malte Wilms, Alina Uhlenbrock, Christiane Schmidt
team Christ & Gantenbein: Emanuel Christ, Christoph Gantenbein, Cloé Gattigo
team Maurus Schifferli: Maurus Schifferli, Melina Kistani
sociologist: Prof. Dr. Christian Schmid
client: City of Bern
date: October 2018

A Bernese Quarter

The new urban quarter on Viererfeld is being created in synergetic relation to the surrounding scenery - the Aare slope, the historic Enge promenade and the Bremgarten forest. In interpretation of the cinematic method "splitscreen," one half of the space is cast as landscape, the other half as urban. These two large figures—the city block and the city park—take up the scale of the perimeter and reinforce its magnificence with grand gestures. The city block is a typologically pure form wherein individual houses subordinate themselves to the whole, resulting in a large communal interior framed by private flats. The city park reinterprets this principle with intensive edge use and a coherent, open center. Both large figures thus oscillate between a monumental grandeur and small-scale spaces.

The linearity of Bern’s old town is continued by the city block and elevated into a principle of spatial experience. The block’s two long fronts—one facing the promenade and the other the park—locate the required density at the edge, thus leaving the largest possible space in the interior undeveloped. The continuity of the exterior co-exists with interior heterogeneity through parceling; the plot is here understood not only as a fundamental economic principle but also as a formative one. Plots allow for the realization of different house sizes (small/medium/large/very large) and economic models (building group/cooperative housing/ pension funds), creating both consistency and adaptability. This system maintains a calm exterior, while allowing the interior to develop its own qualities. It becomes a sort of ‘outside’ in its own rite; its own biotope—socially and ecologically held together by its size and character. Public paths traverse the courtyard, each breaking the perimeter at two joints—where visibility and connectivity concentrate public services—and forming three yards within the interior.

These paths connect the linear elements of promenade and block to the equally long city park. Following Camillo Sitte’s theories of irregular urban space, generous street square and park spaces are experienced in sequence, lending the quarter a heterogeneous, green, urban character. Criteria of perception and use thus produce the new Viererfeldpark, which consists of an intensively used edge and open inner commons. The spatial framework of the park is built of fine paths and high hedges, displaying a wide array of public uses along the periphery, while giving glimpses into the expansive interior. The hedges form commons of round cells aligned in a diagonal enfilade. This arrangement frames strong individual spaces, while the park’s impressive size remains visible along the axis. The circular path system circumnavigates the subspaces creating long movements, and connects the commons to the forest to the East and the new quarter to the West. Three tall houses are placed amongst the gardens to the South, accentuating the flowing space of the commons and completing an ensemble of spaces punctuated by alpine views and large oak trees.

status: competition, 1st prize
program: library, archive, theatre, bar, Art’Iz arts academy
location: Izegem, Belgium
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Christian Kühnle, Mariel Kaiser-Crompton, Tessa Gaunt, Emmet Elliott
structural engineer: Imagine Structure, Frankfurt am Main
energy consultant: Transsolar KlimaEngineering, Stuttgart
acoustic consultant: Karl Goebels, Leverkusen
project partner Belgium: Bureau Bouwtechniek, Antwerp
client: city of Izegem
date: February 2020

The Strobbe printing press is an important part of Izegem's architectural identity. This building is thus seen not merely as a resource for sustainability, but also as an important example of a proud industrial building tradition. The essence of this building is the starting point for the ‘Cultuurfabriek’—the ‘Volkshuizen’ of Izegem. It is a house which belongs to everyone - a symbol of the city’s re-appropriation.

The Cultuurfabriek unites the previously separated institutions of archive, library and academy within the large body of the Strobbe printing house. The result is more than the sum of its parts, for the overlap of institutions creates a unique social entity in its own rite. Through the large, shared event space, restaurant/bar/cafe and small exhibition space, both the peculiarities of the individual institutions and their thematic harmony are experienced together.

The transformation of the Strobbe printing press into a culture hub is achieved with only minor interventions and additions: the building is understood as a large open structure in which existing qualities are discovered and enhanced. The structural beauty of the space is exposed, the size and essence of the rooms made tangible, while a few new large installations organize and upgrade the space. These space-making additions are infrastructural in nature, always accessible, and contain secondary rooms underneath or inside. These additions serve as actors in open space, concentrating and provoking action.

Towards the goal of sustainability, the building is regarded as a complete system in which all individual parts contribute to the success of the whole. The conversion of the existing building saves resources, the grey energy bound in the building is reused, and superimposition of program allows for a minimum of new construction. Preservation goes before demolition, strengthening before replacement.

status: competition
program: subsidized housing
location: St. Pauli, Hamburg
team BeL: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Christiane Schmidt, Alia Mortada, Julia Kaulen, Michel Kleinbrahm, Jonas Läufer, Wolfgang Zeh
team NL: Kamiel Klaasse, Kirsten Hüsig, Laura Riano Lopez, Pieter Bannenberg, Guilia Pastore, Jasna Kajevic
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
client: Bayerische Hausbau GmbH & Co. KG., Bezirksamt Hamburg Mitte
date: August 2016

Plot 4 is composed of two residential buildings facing onto the alleyway with access to the common courtyard. The first of these sits at the corner of the new alleyway and the ‘Kastanienallee’ along the South of the site. It is a two-volume ‘Doppelhaus’ composed of a Milanese-style corner building and residential tower. The second is a retirement community home which faces the alleyway with a series of ornamental balconies.

The two parts of the ‘Doppelhaus’ are offset by one stair landing, creating a split-level semi-detached house joined through an exterior security staircase. In the Milanese corner building, the lift leads directly to the arcade, which provides access to three 3.5-room flats. The flats have an open floor plan, allowing for various forms of cohabitation. The tower features three 1,5-room apartments per level, each have a 5 m² loggia and deep-set windowsill with expansive views over the Hamburg harbor. These two communities come together at the roof garden of the corner house, which is accessible to all residents.

The five-story retirement home forms another unique community: four small flats per story share a common living room and a large balcony overlooking the alley. This creates social networking and exchange not only among the residents, but between the residents and the adjoining public space. The façade is horizontally structured, defined by precast concrete elements and 'tattooed' flower pots for flats and living rooms. The ground floor has a small shop and restaurant as flexible commercial space, further tying the building to the alleyway.

status: completed
program: pavilion for the campaign "Liebe deine Stadt - trotzdem! 2005-2015" by Merlin Bauer
location: Willy-Millowitsch-Platz, Cologne
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Gina Rauschtenberger
client: Merlin Bauer
date: November 2015

Kölner Architekturpreis 2017, honorable mention

The pavilion for the anniversary campaign "LIEBE DEINE STADT - TROTZDEM! / 2005 - 2015" (Love your City – Regardless!) by artist Merlin Bauer is a simple, mobile building. Here, the three campaign motifs "FRUST", "TROST" and "HOFFNUNG" (Frustration, Solace and Hope) are presented as light boxes alongside their corresponding editions, printed for the anniversary campaign. In keeping with the multi-layered nature of the "Love Your City" project, the pavilion engages with several levels of urban society, public space and architecture.

While in its ostensible function as a sales booth, the pavilion occupies a typological proximity to market stalls and kiosks, it also expresses its role as public building. It refers subtly to Friedrich Schinkel’s Neue Museum (now the Alte Museum) in Berlin. Built in 1825, it established the typology of museum architecture in Germany with its monumental open portico of 18 Ionic columns. The pavilion adopts this gesture, forming an urban loggia with 19 pairs of slender steel columns.

In the urban space, it is casually placed at the edge of intense pedestrian flows a certain width ensures both good visibility and creates a "square" in front of the pavilion's facade.  The three-axis symmetry of the pavilion’s body and illuminated "Love your city" lettering give the building a monumental solemnity, which is immediately countered by the delicacy of the construction and the restraint of its color scheme. The covered areas to the side of the actual retail space can be used to linger, shelter from rain, or to view the museum display case. Here, too, the simultaneous but subtle perception of its scale’s alienation creates the moment of irritation inherent to the entire project.

The pavilion can be dismantled and set up in any location, both outdoors and indoors. It does not require foundations, and the construction system of wood, steel and aluminum is optimized for quick assembly and disassembly times. Adjustable feet ensure precise alignment of the building, and the building can be burglar-proofed by means of wire-glazed windows that can be pulled out of the display cases.

www.liebe-deine-stadt.de

status: competition. 1st prize for A2/A4
program: housing, retail, daycare facility for children
location: Hamburg-Harburg
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Sebastian Haufe, Julia Kaulen, Alina Uhlenbrock
client: CG group
date: March 2019

The Neuländer Quarree is a decisive building block in the urban transformation of Harburg's inland port. While the typical port traffic, logistics and commercial structures will continue to exist in the long term, residential and leisure uses are beginning to move in, requiring protection—particularly from noise. The urban master plan successfully meets this challenge with the perimeter block development of the building sites, but requires careful architectural interpretation of site-specific qualities. Harburg's inland harbor possess an identity-forming heterogeneity; the autonomous juxtaposition of sometimes dramatically different spaces, scales and building typologies give the area a rough, disorderly charm. Yet disorder is by no means random. The individual buildings each have their own order—corresponding to their individual industrial processes—and they hold together, not through monotony, but through a shared vocabulary of infrastructural elements and a common landscape: large swaths of sky, inland waterways and the resulting presence of water fowl.

The Neuländer Quarree develops its qualities from this balance of autonomy and dependence. The unadorned romanticism of the harbor is reinforced through and engagement with found building types. To this end, conglomeration serves as a principle of orchestration, coordinating a concert of the ordinary, the bulky, the simple, and the magnificent. The individual structures of the quarter are united by the master plan in an orderly manner, and the small blocks create dwellings which deal with the challenges of alignment and noise. However, to participate in aesthetic qualities of their immediate surroundings, the blocks are opened up and re-interpreted as assemblages of smaller parts. These parts are understood as house types which take up an active relationship to their context, evoking memories of familiar residential buildings. The resulting collage is overwritten by a material similarity; the formal structure of corrugation applied in different materials: sheet metal, GRP, ceramics, and precast concrete. These elements are complemented by generous, fowl-safe glass, giving all flats views into the landscape.

The first conglomerate, A1, is composed of three apartment buildings around a small square, one symmetrical, one staggered, and one round. An elevated plinth containing a fully-glazed restaurant and multi-story bike garage connects the symmetrical building to the north with the staggered building to the south. The staged building, in turn, merges into the round building to the west, completing the three sides of the square. The second conglomerate, A2, is formed from a deep-row building and a villa, both sitting on a plinth. The plinth contains 5,6-meter-high studio or commercial units and a generous lobby, serving as address and communal space for the development. The final conglomerate, A4, is more composite, featuring a homogeneous inner courtyard formed by corner, terrace and apartment buildings. The inner courtyard is the garden of the day-care center, which is situated in a ring around it, while the corner and terrace apartments claim expansive views of the harbor.

status: project
program: New National and University Library
location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Matthias Hoffmann, Wolfgang Zeh
date: March 2012

Library is a place of permanence and continuity. It is rooted in Roman remains. Its geometry is based on the universal orthogonal grid of Roman colonial planning. Yet it is a place of change, openness and progress. As a laboratory of knowledge it nurtures scholarship and community.

Here time is no longer linear but becomes simultaneous. Library melts time into a single presence. There is no antagonism of old and new, no ideological compulsion to destroy and overcome. Whether we rest on the shoulders of giants or whether giants stand in our way, the future will know. Library pays tribute to the rich urban fabric of Ljubljana and complements Plečnik's city with humility. It balances between civic grandeur and modesty. To be the New National Library and yet one among many buildings Library is just slightly detached from the city block, an almost stand-alone monument. Almost. Its distribution of building mass emphasizes Zoisova Street as an "University Boulevard" and adapts in scale towards French Revolution Square. Both entrances are marked with recesses and grand stairs. The gap between the city block and Library opens a pedestrian path to cross the courtyard. Access of vehicles for loading, the handicapped, and restricted parking is also permitted here.

Library expands the limits of typologies, it is an open plan building yet contains six distinguished public rooms. Free access shelves and restricted archive areas blend into a continuous space. Physically they are separated by glass walls. Horizontally the public rooms have no limits, the rooms are defined by their voids and their natural light.

A structural system of waffle slabs supported on cores and cross-shaped columns allows large spans and a minimum of piled foundations. The impact on the archeological remains is minimized, the flexibility of the library space is maximized. Library is an open building, the entrance level is a 24h zone. Five reading rooms and the multi-functional hall are spread across the floors. They create zones of distinct character, each with individual spatial qualities. The user can retire to his place of choice. In the special collection he will be among Roman ruins, in the grand reading room underneath the sky. The multipurpose hall is situated on Level 0 and can be used independently from the library.

Library is a place of presence and identity. It is a physical space, it has weight but is still floating. It defines space but stimulates interpretation. Library is multi-folded space.

status: competition
program: housing
location: Raderthalgürtel, Cologne
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Paula Frasch, Matthias Hoffmann, Christiane Schmidt
client: PARETO GmbH
date: September 2014

Even after a century of development, Cologne’s ring road or ‚Gürtel’ contains large reserves for the potential development and expansion of Cologne. To integrate this expansion into the overarching urbanism of the ‘Gürtel,’ a precise urban morphological analysis of all sections of the Cologne Belt was conducted. The resulting catalogue of urban building blocks forms the ground out of which the proposal--‘Der Raderthalgürtel’--grows. The section of the ring in question is one of the youngest on the Cologne Belt. The 1970s construction of the ‘Deutsche Welle’ and ‘Deutschlandfunk’ high-rise buildings produced diffusely urbanized and intensified the area, which was still partly agricultural and partly industrial.

At 220 meters in length, the ‘Große Siedlungshaus’ is the horizontal counterweight to these high-rises, while the compact physical presence of such a large structure compliments and furthers the urban diversity of the greater ring road. Row houses with roof terraces face south onto the Gürtel, reflecting the characteristic 19^th century reform urbanism of neighboring Klettenberg and Sülz. To the North, the Siedlungshaus presents a façade with seven towers and seven gates leading to seven interior courtyards. These courtyards are shielded from street noise by the row houses, but because of their low stature, still receive generous amounts of sunlight. The adjacency of the large ring road with the small housing typologies generates an interplay of private and public space for all ages. Semi-private niches face to the North while a series of Jane Jacobs-esque stoops lead South onto to ring road sidewalk. The uniformly distributed through-ways gently describe interior yards in which ‘en passant’ supervision of children comes naturally.   

status: competition
program: bank
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Thomas Schneider
gross floor area: 1.034 m²
cost: 2.648.632,00 €
client: Sparda-Bank West
structural engineer: Jürgen Bernhardt, Cologne
date: January 2007

The scheme is based on Edward T. Halls theory of proxemics, a study on the individual's need for personal space. To guarantee privacy within an open space, confidential conversations need to be protected by minimum distances. The proposal embraces the conflicting requirements of openness and privacy and encourages customers to ascend to the upper floors.

A low-ceilinged Rustico welcomes the customer on street level. The ground floor is open to the public 24 hours a day and houses several ATMs. During business hours an extra-wide spiral staircase opens to a spacious Piano Nobile. The structural system of the building consists of 13 slim columns and 5 waffle floor slabs. A service core contains ATMs, a staircase and an elevator.

Due to the cooperative heritage of the Sparda Bank the project indulges in humbleness.

status: completed
program: cities of assembly
location: Arsenale, Venice
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Michel Kleinbrahm, Matthias Hoffmann, Christiane Schmidt, Gina Rauschtenberger, Leonard Palm, Mariel Kaiser-Crompton, Alia Mortada, Julia Kaulen, Wolfgang Zeh, Achim Nagel, Roman Krükel, Paula Frasch, Jonas Läufer, Sofya Panova, Christian Kühnle, Moritz Dornseifer, Mihails Staluns, David Taffner, Yasemin Bulut, Stefanie Oßenkamp, Nicola Schmalt, Thomas Bohne, Philipp Kentgens, Laura Fuchs, Lara Fieguth, Norman Schroeder, Katja Göser, Judith Neyses, Amelie Kulassek, Sinam Hawro Yakoob, Kaja Gerstein, Johanna Willert, Valentin Lindenlauf, Henriette Riecke, Eva Neumann, Tom Walther, Jan Rothstein, Lavinia Hoeck, Nina Ismar, Ruslan Dimov, Tobias Fink, Anton Schwingen, Franz Klein-Wiele, Janina Pahlke, Veit Landwehr, Tom May, Jürgen Bernhardt, Edith Bernhardt, Peter Schomann, Guillaume Deforet, Bernhard Stratmann, Klaus-Dieter Münchhofen, James Roderick O'Donovan, Lilith Bernhardt

with the support of: PRIMUS developments GmbH, Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, IBA Hamburg GmbH, Stadt München, Bauwelt Delmes Heitmann, Peter Behrens School of Arts, RWTH Aachen University, Preisser, Dow International, Schuckertz Modellbau, Bundesarchiv, Daniela Westphal-Reichow, Georg Westermann Verlag, Verlag Ernst Wasmuth
client: la Biennale di Venezia
date: May 2016

NEUBAU - on Königsberger Straße and Aleppoer Weg

Germany is an immigration country, in the metropolitan regions there is a housing shortage. By 2026 this shortage will amount to around four million affordable dwellings. In a large model NEUBAU shows four speculative self-build cities which represent a further development of the project Grundbau und Siedler that was implemented at the IBA in Hamburg. A comparison to the major reconstruction work after 1945 reveals similarities and differences over a period of ten years. We call the urban districts "city of assembly". They are co-productions; between the poles of self-determination and planning a wide variety of spaces is developed for community, production, trade, and private use. 50% of the residents have a migration background, these are districts for everyone.

status: facade competition, honourable mention
program: housing, boarding house, co-working space / vertical village principle
location: Cologne
team: Anne-Julchen Bernhardt, Jörg Leeser, Laura Fuchs, Amelie Bimberg, Jonas Läufer, Leonard Palm, Wolfgang Zeh
client: CG Group
date: August 2017

With their Post Office 3, Cologne, Joachim and Margot Schürmann monumentally, finely and humanely inserted an infrastructural building into the city. The BDA prize-wining Post Office 3 is a very serious work of architecture. In the tradition of great architects, the Schürmanns produced a whole in which all its considerations—from urban positioning to material dimensioning—interlock perfectly. In the 35 years since its design, however, the digital revolution has radically changed the industrial needs of the post. Conversion of the city block-sized building to living quarters therefore makes sense, but cannot be approached as a typical industrial building conversion. To preserve the spirit of Post Office 3 as it is adapted for a second cycle of use, requires the humble work of apprehension and analysis. The internal logic of the building, its principles and rules, must serve as the basis for its metamorphosis. 

One can see in its size, proportion and volumetric articulation, a reference to the palazzo of the Italian Renaissance at work in the Schürmanns design. They structured the building both vertically (in the base zone, middle zone and roof) and horizontally (in an overarching axial symmetry with emphases center and corner) according to classical rules. They then filled the exterior load-bearing skeleton of the post office with window bands and masonry bands, combining their pre-modern principles of structure and proportion with modern, precise construction. Consistent detailing is a principle of all good architecture; a labor which here resulted in concrete structures, masonry, metalwork and glasswork of outstanding quality. This uniquely modern glasswork (for the walkways along the street, the interior courtyard ring, and staircase to the roof) taken in tandem with the open terraces and stairs of the corners, expresses the final principle of the design: the life of the building is made visible. Joachim and Margot Schürmann have translated the movements of the people into architectural form.

These features form the basis for the new façade concept: transparent solidity. The façade becomes a climatic and acoustic space for habitation, allowing for the preservation of the buildings exquisite detailing (designed to fulfill 30-year-old energy requirements). A loggia is closed off with glass blocks and single-glazed reversible windows, extending the compact living spaces of the interior and inviting residents to vary connection to the outdoor space. From a distance, the classical solidity of the building’s preserved volumes is reinforced by the shiny surfaces of its materials, while from close-up, the façade reveals its multi-layeredness and new residential content. The new division of the flats in the floor plan is perceptible in the subtle rhythm of the reversible windows while the newly added upper floors introduce a slight syncopation to the western façade. The clear, slightly turquoise glass blocks fit effortlessly into the building’s dimensions and together with glazed brick parapets they introduce light blue and light green into the pallet of beige, grey and white. The tiled floor of the loggia adds a warm pink to the mix, without overpowering the façade. This new colorful residential character is repeated in the inner courtyard, where generous tiled terraces adopt the brick parapet, stepping back with each floor and providing all units with direct access to the sky.