Trygg-Hansa

Iconic Tengbom heritage

It was Anders Tengbom and his colleagues who once designed the now iconic brick building on Kungsholmen, completed in 1977. The building, originally created for Trygg-Hansa with its own restaurant, sports facilities and extensive art installations, now houses several tenants, and the insurance company has reduced its area to two floors. Forty years after completion, Tengbom was once again commissioned to review Trygg-Hansa’s office and operations, with the clear objective of optimising the office space from 26,000 to 7,200 square metres. This initiated a transformation process in which the majority of all 500 employees would now work in an activity-based environment.

We did not overlook the connection to the lifebuoy

In close dialogue with the client and their own change manager, we established the concept “cast off” early in the process. This became a metaphor both for the journey ahead and for the new interior design concept. Aesthetically, this resulted in a combination of modern and characterful furniture together with rounded 1970s forms, ensuring the reference to the lifebuoy remained evident. Spatially, it resulted in a completely new layout with a large social meeting point called the Coffice, as well as workspaces and meeting rooms in various sizes and formats.

Dialogue above all

A defining aspect of the project was the dialogue between Tengbom and Trygg-Hansa’s steering group. With shared goals, one can go far.

“In this type of project, prioritisation is often necessary. Therefore, one of the architect’s most important tasks is to guide and support individuals and organisations through differing needs, while also explaining the consequences of various choices and compromises in a clear and accessible way. By seeing the whole, we can steer the project towards the best possible solution,” says Tengbom’s project lead architect Torbjörn Höeg.