At the end of the 60s, the Veterinary and Food Inspection Office was located in Bielefeld in the east of Bielefeld's city centre. The two-storey building with a flat roof was a typical testimony to the architecture of its time and stood in contrast to the otherwise quite homogeneous neighbourhood, characterised by free-standing residential buildings with pitched roofs, both in terms of urban planning and architecture. In the early 2000s, the offices were moved to a different location. Since then, the building has been empty. After the purchase of the property by the real estate company of Volksbank Gütersloh Bielefeld, the building was demolished and replaced by a mixed use of residential and commercial.
The design approach pursues the goal of careful urban repair, in which the new building masses fit harmoniously into the existing structure of the surrounding area in terms of urban planning and architecture. For this purpose, instead of one large building volume covering the entire property, three buildings were proposed, the size and shape of which are based on the immediately adjacent buildings along Oststraße. The four-storey building in the north takes up the alignment of the neighbouring buildings and the eastern, also four-storey, the alignment of the church along Fritz-Reuter-Straße. The building at the junction of Fritz-Reuter-Straße / Oststraße has five floors. In addition, it jumps out of the alignments of the adjacent buildings, thus emphasizing the corner at the junction of the two streets.
Due to the arrangement of the buildings, all existing trees could be preserved. They mark the beginning of a green corridor that crosses the residential quarter and contribute to the enrichment of the quality of living. The buildings are grouped around a small square open to Oststraße, which forms the entrance to the individual houses as a semi-public outdoor space. This is adjoined to the east by a garden with a children's playground, which is exclusively available to residents and is protected from traffic due to its location away from the roads. The southern and eastern buildings are connected on the ground floor. A branch of the Volksbank was originally planned here, but its realisation was abandoned in the course of the implementation of the project. Now a bakery is housed in the corner building, which enlivens the forecourt with a small outdoor restaurant. The ground floors of the northern and eastern buildings also house small-scale commercial uses. The total of 24 residential units on the upper floors of the three buildings are of different sizes. They range from 60 to 120 sqm and provide a mixed resident structure. The required parking spaces are located in an underground car park with a direct connection to the stairwells of the three buildings. Access to the garage is directly from Oststraße.
[Text: Architekten Wannenmacher + Möller GmbH] (https://www.wannenmacher-moeller.de/Wohnhaus_Oststrase.html)
Pictures: Csaba Mester/ Kirill Starodubskij
