Mateo Arquitectura revisited the head office of PGGM insurance company in Zeist (Holland) and its surroundings, specially created to contextualize and interact with the building, four years on.

Mateo Arquitectura proposed for this project, located nearby the city of Zeist, close to Utrecht, a new extension near the current building, 25,000 sqm, and at the same time recover the parkland in which it is set by means of the construction of a 25.000 sqm underground car park.

Now, four year on, the architect revisits the project surroundings, the new parkland, a new landscape created at PGGM’s headquarters. Below, the pictures.

Descripction of the project by Mateo Arquitectura

When Josep Lluís Mateo received the commission to extend the head office of the Dutch company, he was well aware that he was facing two major architecture challenges:

– Expanding the existing building to twice its size, and
– Working on the building and the landscape in conjunction so that they would form a whole.

The project had to communicate harmoniously with the dense woods that surrounded it. The architect therefore decided to use nature —green— as a continuous layer for the new construction to float on. The conservation, reinforcement and intensification of the intrinsic qualities of this landscape formed the basis of the project.

To create an appropriate context for the new headquarters, he freed up the land around the building of parking areas and services, which were integrated into the volume of the new construction. This intervention gave way to a large private park.

The new communication and work spaces are accommodated on a raised promenade that was created to join the new and the old buildings. The lightness and visual permeability of the materials used open up to the created landscape, ensuring a direct, total visual relation between interior and exterior. The worker is inside, but at once outside.

CREDITS.

Architect: PGGM Headquarters - Mateo Arquitectura / Josep Lluís Mateo
Project.- 2003-2005
Construction.- 2008-2013

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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.

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