© Hanns Josten photographer
Sophienstrasse 18, Berlin
www.hannsjoosten.de

Topotek1 webgallery

Asphalt Means Transportation

The surface of a site is more than meets the eye. In its very basic form the surface enables human action, facilitates the ease of movement. For the office of Topotek1 the smooth dermis of asphalt contains an essence of human interaction.
On the surface of the earth sky and and earth touch. The earth's surface is the locality of human movement, the origin of human labour. Man paints, draws, structures and letters this surface as if for someone who will observe from above. The dialectic moment of the view downward always implies the view upwards. Such dealing with surfaces we can find in the neolithic period or in precolumbian cultures, but also in in the baroque epoch. The surface was not just used as a canvas on which objects were placed, but as an object in itself. Examples are the "White Horse" or the gigantic "Chalk Man" in the South of England, the large winged figures in the Peruvian high-plateaus and the baroque broderie-parterres in Europe. They serve as points of reference for our projects.

The issue of the surface constitutes a recurrent aspect in dealing with garden and landscape. As the scope of garden-design is expanding to include creating roofscapes, courtyards, parking lots, and urban planes, dealing with surface as an object becomes immanently important.

Uninterrupted by joints asphalt is a pure surface. Its dark or black hues give everything on it a certain depth. Asphalt is an elegant, sensuous surface. At the same time it is a ubiquitous, banal material. One will quite often notice the specific coulour of the asphalt and the different graphic conventions applied to its surface only under the different light of travelling. A glistening tarmac will be one of the first things one sees when stepping from out of an airport. Asphalt is a means of visual transport. Twofold, plied over the landscape it guides your visual impressions of the places and scenes you´ll see; and it in fact carries encrusted on its surface images of places.
The surface transports imagery, signs, and signage which in turn carry, guide, entice you through space. The stops and gos, the heres and theres of the streetscape form a language in space. We try to work with this language, transporting, transforming it and making the aesthetic experience of traffic surface and graphics into a poetic language of landscape. Within the realm of conventional means, public space thus is awarded the unconventional quality of an abstract picture.

Text: Martin Rein-Cano, Thilo Folkerts

Urban playground at Niebuhrstrasse
Berlin Charlottenburg
Site: 1300 m2

The playground, sited in the inner core of West-Berlin, is a colourful eyecatcher - as it is plainly visible from the tracks of the metropolitan transportsystem. It is sunk 1,5m into the ground and thus rather resembles a concise playbox than a mere standard playground. The project was devised to stimulate phantasies for unconventional ways of play and sports. In its measurements below standard regulation, the space, but also the demarcation called for a different set of rules. The ground-material does not limit itself to remaining on the ground, but also covers the sides. The spiraling wire-mesh fence is put up in two layers in grey and black coulours to create a stimulating moiree-effect.
A site off standards, off-the-rule marking, and unusual application of material make for an exiting new meeting-point that will potentially initiate new rules for new urban sports

Refurnishing "Unter den Linden" Boulevard, Berlin, competition
1998, 3rd Prize

The competion design closely adapts to the given urbanistic and spatial situation. The focus is given to the enhancement of overall appearance of the Boulevard "Unter den Linden"- a street of pivotal historic and contemporary importance. The Historic street bridges site of eastern European Middle Ages and the era of Illuminism, when light and vegetation were allowed into the city. Through a specific staging and a dramaturgic oscillation between Brandenburg Gate and the former castle, the boulevard showcases all representative architectures which the various German states have produced in their emergence. The boulevard reaches its veritable grandeur unlike any other street through a successful interplay of open and sheltered spaces in a grand urban structure which has been able to withstand the centuries.
In interpreting the furniture as part of the street and not of the surronding architectures, there follows a necessity for a finely tuned dramaturgic harmony in concordance with the rhythm of the street. In the way of an integrative concept, we understand the street-furniture not as an additive, but rather a coherent element of the streetscape. Thus they are to be understood as growing out of the pavement. In the sense of a tectonic system the furniture is a micro-architecture which has to be clearly read as partial to te street. The single furniture elements establish a unity of urban space through a coherent language of form and material. This language is developed from an orthogonal element which adapts acording to function and spatial importance. A simple and discrete language of form, combined with a decided materiality underlines in the furniture the formative historic ambiance of Unter den Linden without ecclectic ingratiation. The gray limestone seems to grow from the pavement and continues its greyness in a varied hue. Hard-wood creates a dialectic reference to its ontology from a tree (between the rows of linden) and creates a haptical relationship of the vistor with the material. The impression which is produced is one of clear rationality assembled through a row of emotional elements. The dramaturgically strongest elements are the benches. Along the central Promenade they align as six-meter elements, two meters apart. They are reminders of the endless rows of single chairs on German Democratic Republic. The centered and independent character of the middle-promenade is hereby enhanced. Additionally the connective character of this longitudinal elements spans the strip between the Brandenburg Gate and the area of the former castle. At night a differentiated system of lights illuminates the full stretch of the boulevard.

Open spaces at Allianz office - and commercial building
Stresemannstraße 111, Berlin-Mitte
client: Eigentümergemeinschaft Allianz - Lebensversicherungs AG / DKV AG
design: 1996-97
construction: 1998 and 2000
architecture: Alsop & Störmer, London Hamburg
site: 1.900 m2
cost: 450.000,00 DM

"Form is a mystery, which eludes definition, but makes man feel good in a way quite unlike social aid." Alvar Aalto

We wanted to develop the open spaces at the building of the insurance-company as a wholistic space. Old and new architecture form a rather closed ensemble in which war-damage is still perceivable as a fracture. The seven-storey building rises from a two-level underground parking-garage which extents until under the courtyard. (...) The surface which was at our hands to design is part of a built structure. Here, a multifunctional, typically urban space is developed: as entry to the building, as driveway into the parking garage, as delivery, and as a connective courtyard between old and new architecture (...) The effect of this site is defined by the facades and the ground-surface. We insisted on enhancing the play of horizontal and vertical surfaces. We consider the ground-surface to be the fifth facade.
In order to fully unfold the power of the surface, we decided for a background of black asphalt and marking-colours in yellow, red and white. To apply road graphics as an artistic element is part of our concept.
We used original materials, forms and colours, which are conventionally applied in traffic regulation and set them into a new context, where they independently form a new, abstract world of information.
To again underline the play of surfaces and different levels, the marking extends down into the parking garage.Thus changes in scale occur in various ways and an reciprocal interconnection with the adjacent buildings. The longevity of the materials used will be at about 25 years.

Open space at Eisenbahnbundesamt/Bundeseisenbahnvermogen (Federal Railway Office/Federal Railway Estate)
Berlin, 2001
Architecture Aukett+Heese, architects, Berlin
Client: Deutsche Bahn Immobilien GmbH
Construction budget: 850.000 Euro
Area: 6.700 qm

The park around the building develops from a conceptional dialogue aout the dynamics of linear form. Paralleling the neighboring railway-line, a hedge-garden and a paltform/bench with a wooden skin complemet the linear structure of the architecture's facade. The compact park itself also comprises a small wetland area and protected willows along its banks. Facing the street a graphic treatment of concrete and polygonal slate-stone pavement envelops circular planting areas. The theme of the urban square is represented
through a game of light ad shadow. The shadow of a person is embossed into the concrete and in its seriality the shadows seem to avalanche downward from the entrance of the building towards the entrance of a metro station.
Topotek1

Website:www.topotek1.de
Italian text
Translation by Marzia Petracca

Many thanks for the photographs and the materials at Topotek1 and Mr. Hanns Josten

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