Josep Lluís Mateo presents the new head offices of PGGM

This coming 14 April sees the official opening of the new building for the head offices of PGGM insurance company in the municipality of Zeist (Utrecht, Holland). The event will be attended by the project architect, Josep Lluís Mateo, the Mayor of Zeist and the Board of Directors of PGGM.

Interior view. New head offices of PGGM by Josep Lluís Mateo. Photograph © Photo Adrià Goula

This project addressedpggm_localizacion the need to increase the surface area of the existing building and recover the parkland in which it is set, while maintaining the relation between the construction and its setting. The result is a building that mimics its natural context, creating a visual and aesthetic harmony and integrating the existing building by making the most of its full potential.

Integration is achieved by means of the lightness and visual permeability of the materials used for the new building, ensuring that the visual relation between inside and outside is complete and direct.

The volume of the new building emerges as a layout in keeping with that of the original building. The pre-existing building was made up of different wings of offices that intersected, leaving a kind of cloister or “patio” between them. Continuing this logic, a new layout appears in the south of the site. This layout is configured by two large, elongated office wings, intersected by small connecting buildings that spatially connect the new with the existing.

Into the open space inside the existing building, a transparent volume is introduced, raised above ground level. The cross-shape of this volume is superposed and adapted to integrate and communicate with the surrounding buildings. The addition of this “patio building” is a functional solution to the long distances that existed in the original building.

The indoor space is designed to provide the flexibility required by contemporary corporate activity, offering spaces with multiple possibilities to allow workers to choose the place they work at all times according to their professional and personal needs. Work was also infused with a spirit of innovation at the service of sustainability, with systems of ventilation built into the false ceilings to filter outside air naturally and condition the various spaces. This represents a major energy saving and frees the building of the tubes and machinery that visually and acoustically interfere in the workers’ environment.

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Exterior view. New head offices of PGGM by Josep Lluís Mateo. Photograph © Photo Adrià Goula

Site map. New head offices of PGGM by Josep Lluís Mateo

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JOSEP LLUÍS MATEO

Josep Lluís Mateo was born in Barcelona (1949) and graduated in Architecture in 1974 from the ETSAB and gained his doctorate (cum laude) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 1994.

Mateo’s practice is based in Barcelona, and he is currently involved in a number of local and international projects such as the new Film Theatre of Catalonia in Barcelona, the new headquarters for PGGM Pension Fund Company in Zeist, Holland and the office building on the former site of Renault factories in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, among others.

With each of his projects, Mateo seeks to connect the practice of construction with research and development in both intellectual and programmatic terms. He works in the area between the sphere of ideas and the physical world of reality.

Academic collaborations and teaching:
Josep Lluís Mateo has been Professor of the Architecture Department at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich (ETH-Z) since 2002. He has also taught and lectured at numerous institutions around the world, including Princeton, Columbia University in New York, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, ABK Stuttgart, UP8 Paris, OAF Oslo and ITESM Mexico. He was Visiting Scholar at the Jean P. Getty Center in Los Angeles from 1991 to 1992. Josep Lluís Mateo is President since 2009 of the Board of Directors of the Barcelona Institute of Architecture. He has been a member of a number of juries and expert committees, including the Quality Committee of Barcelona City Council (2000-2008), and for prizes such as the European Landscape Award and the Thyssen Award.

Recent exhibitions and prizes:
The practice’s work has been exhibited on numerous occasions thanks to its international influence. New York’s MoMA devoted a space in the exhibition “Spain: On Site” (2006) to its apartment building in Valencia for the Sociopolis Project. Individual exhibitions include those at Ras Gallery (Barcelona, 2009), Architekturgalerie Aedes (Berlin, 2004), Architekturzentrum Wien (Vienna, 1998), Col•legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (Barcelona, 1998),Galerie Fragner (Prague, 1998), Galerie Aedes (Berlin, 1994), Architekturgalerie Luzern (Luzern, 1992) and Architekturgalerie Munich (Munich, 1991).

The work of Josep Lluís Mateo has been awarded many prizes, including:
- Top International Purpose-Built Venue 2008, First Prize. Best International Convention Centre category.
Organized by C&IT magazine, London. Project: CCIB-Barcelona International Convention Centre
- 2008 Archizinc Award, First Prize. Collective Housing category. Project: Sant Jordi Students’ Hall of Residence, Barcelona
- European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award 2005, Runner-up. Project: CCIB- Barcelona International Convention Centre
- 15th Award of Grupo Dragados de Arquitectura.